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MEN  OF  INVENTION 


AND 


INDUSTRY 


By  SAMUEL  SMILES,  LL.D. 

AUTHOR   OF    "  LIVES   OP   THE  STEPHENSONS "    "  INDUSTRIAL    BIOGRAPHY' 
"  SELF-HELP  "    "  CHARACTER  "    "  THRIFT  "    ETC. 


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erance of  nations  and  their  own  greatness.  Their  hearts  are  their  books  ; 
events  are  their  tutors  ;  great  actions  are  their  eloquence." — Macaulay. 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 
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PREFACE. 


I  offer  this  book  as  a  continuation  of  the  memoirs 
of  men  of  invention  and  industry  published  some 
years  ago  in  the  "Lives  of  Engineers,"  "Industrial 
Biography,"  and  "  Self-Help." 

The  early  chapters  relate  to  the  history  of  a  very 
important  branch  of  British  industry — that  of  ship- 
building. A  later  chapter,  kindly  prepared  for  me 
by  Mr.  Harland  of  Belfast,  relates  to  the  origin  and 
progress  of  ship-building  in  Ireland. 

Many  of  the  facts  set  forth  in  the  "  Life  and  Inven- 
tions of  William  Murdock  "  have  already  been  pub- 
lished in  my  "  Lives  of  Bolton  and  Watt ;"  but  these 
are  now  placed  in  a  continuous  narrative,  and  sup- 
plemented by  other  information,  more  particularly 
the  correspondence  between  Watt  and  Murdock, 
communicated  to  me  by  the  present  representative 
of  the  family,  Mr.  Murdock,  C.E.,  of  Gilwern,  near 
Abergavenny. 

I  have  also  endeavored  to  give  as  accurate  an  ac- 
count as  possible  of  the  invention  of  the  steam 
printing-press,  and  its  application  to  the  production 
of  newspapers  and  books  —  an  invention  certainly 
of  great  importance  to  the  spread  of  knowledge, 
science,  and  literature  throughout  the  world. 


iv  Preface. 

The  chapter  on  the  "  Industry  of  Ireland "  will 
speak  for  itself.  It  occurred  to  me,  on  passing 
through  Ireland  last  year,  that  much  remained  to  be 
said  on  that  subject ;  and,  looking  to  the  increasing 
means  of  the  country,  and  the  well-known  industry 
of  its  people,  it  seems  reasonable  to  expect  that,  with 
peace,  security,  energy,  and  diligent  labor  of  head 
and  hand  there  is  really  a  great  future  before  Ire- 
land. 

The  last  chapter,  on  "Astronomers  in  Humble 
Life,"  consists  for  the  most  part  of  a  series  of  auto- 
biographies. It  may  seem,  at  first  sight,  to  have  lit- 
tle to  do  with  the  leading  object  of  the  book ;  but  it 
serves  to  show  what  a  number  of  active,  earnest,  and 
able  men  are  comparatively  hidden  throughout  soci- 
ety, ready  to  turn  their  hands  and  heads  to  the  im- 
provement of  their  own  characters,  if  not  to  the  ad- 
vancement of  the  general  community  of  which  they 
form  a  part. 

In  conclusion  I  say  to  the  reader,  as  Quarles  said 
in  the  preface  to  his  "Emblems,"  "I  wish  thee  as 
much  pleasure  in  the  reading  as  I  had  in  the  writ- 
ing." In  fact,  the  last  three  chapters  were  in  some 
measure  the  cause  of  the  book  being  published  in  its 
present  form. 

London,  November,  1884. 


CONTENTS. 

OUAP.  PAGE 

I.  Phineas  Pett:  Beginnings  of  English  Ship-build- 
ing      1 

II.  Francis  Pettit  Smith  :  Practical  Introducer  of  the 

Screw  Propeller 49 

III.  John  Harrison:  Inventor  of  the  Marine  Chronom- 

eter  72 

IV.  John  Lombe:  Introducer  of  the  Silk  Industry  into 

England 105 

V.  William  Murdock  :  His  Life  and  Inventions .     .     .  119 

VI.  Frederick  Koenig  :  Inventor  of  the  Steam-printing 

Machine 153 

VII.  The  Walters  of  "The  Times;"  Invention  of  the 

Walter  Press 180 

VIII.  William  Clowes  :  Book-printing  by  Steam    .     .     .  205 

IX.  Charles  Bianconi:  A  Lesson  of  Self -Help  in  Ire- 
land  : 217 

X.  Industry  ln  Ireland:  Through  Connaught  and 

Ulster  to  Belfast 252 

XL  SHiP-BUiLDrNG  in  Belfast:  By  E.  T.  Harland,  En- 
gineer and  Shipbuilder ,     .     .     .     .  284 

XII.  Astronomers  and  Students  in  Humble  Life:  A 

New  Chapter  in  the  ' '  Pursuit  of  Knowledge  under 
Difficulties"      . 319 

Index 373 


MEN  OF  INVENTION  AND  INDUSTRY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PHINEAS   PETT. 

BEGINNINGS    OF    ENGLISH    SHIP-BUILDING. 

"A  speck  in  the  Northern  Ocean,  with  a  rocky  coast,  an  ungenial 
climate,  and  a  soil  scarcely  fruitful,  this  was  the  material  patrimony 
which  descended  to  the  English  race  —  an  inheritance  that  would 
have  been  little  worth  but  for  the  inestimable  moral  gift  that  accom- 
panied it.  Yes;  from  Celts,  Saxons,  Danes,  Normans — from  some 
or  all  of  them — have  come  down  with  English  nationality  a  talisman 
that  could  command  sunshine,  and  plenty,  and  empire,  and  fame. 
The  'go'  which  they  transmitted  to  us — the  national  vis — this  it  is 
which  made  the  old  Angle-land  a  glorious  heritage.  Of  this  we  have 
had  a  portion  above  our  brethren  —  good  measure,  running  over. 
Through  this  our  island-mother  has  stretched  out  her  arms  till  they 
enriched  the  globe  of  the  earth.  .  .  .  Britain,  without  her  energy  and 
enterprise,  what  would  she  be  in  Europe  ?" — Blackwood's  Edinburgh 
Magazine  (1870). 

IN  one  of  the  few  records  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton's  life 
which  he  left  for  the  benefit  of  others,  the  follow- 
ing comprehensive  thought  occurs  : 

"  It  is  certainly  apparent  that  the  inhabitants  of  this 
world  are  of  a  short  date,  seeing  that  all  arts,  as  let- 
ters, ships,  printing,  the  needle,  etc.,  were  discovered 
within  the  memory  of  history." 

If  this  were  true  in  Newton's  time,  how  much  truer 
is  it  now.  Most  of  the  inventions  which  are  so  greatly 
influencing,  as  well  as  advancing,  the  civilization  of  the 

1 


2  Phineas  Pett. 


world  at  the  present  time,  have  been  discovered  within 
the  last  hundred  or  hundred  and  fifty  years.  We  do 
not  say  that  man  has  become  so  much  wiser  during 
that  period;  for,  though  he  has  grown  in  knowledge, 
the  most  fruitful  of  all  things  were  said  by  "  the  heirs 
of  all  the  ages  "  thousands  of  years  ago. 

But  as  regards  physical  science,  the  progress  made 
during  the  last  hundred  years  has  been  very  great. 
Its  most  recent  triumphs  have  been  in  connection  with 
the  discovery  of  electric  power  and  electric  light. 
Perhaps  the  most  important  invention,  however,  was 
that  of  the  working  steam-engine,  made  by  Watt,  only 
about  a  hundred  years  ago.  The  most  recent  applica- 
tion of  this  form  of  energy  has  been  in  the  propulsion 
of  ships,  which  has  already  produced  so  great  an  effect 
upon  commerce,  navigation,  and  the  spread  of  popula- 
tion over  the  world. 

Equally  important  has  been  the  influence  of  the  rail- 
way, now  the  principal  means  of  communication  in  all 
civilized  countries.  This  invention  has  started  into 
full  life  within  our  own  time.  The  locomotive  engine 
had  for  some  years  been  employed  in  the  haulage  of 
coals ;  but  it  was  not  until  the  opening  of  the  Liver- 
pool and  Manchester  Railway,  in  1830,  that  the  impor- 
tance of  the  invention  came  to  be  acknowledged.  The 
locomotive  railway  has  since  been  everywhere  adopted 
throughout  Europe.  In  America,  Canada,  and  the  col- 
onies it  has  023ened  up  the  boundless  resources  of  the 
soil,  bringing  the  country  nearer  to  the  towns,  and  the 
towns  to  the  country.  It  has  enhanced  the  celerity  of 
time,  and  imparted  a  new  series  of  conditions  to  every 
rank  of  life. 

The  importance  of  steam  navigation  has  been  still 
more  recently  ascertained.  When  it  was  first  proposed, 
Sir  Joseph  Banks,  President  of  the  Royal  Society,  said: 
"It  is  a  pretty  plan,  but  there  is  just  one  point  over- 


Steam  Navigation. 


looked — that  the  steam-engine  requires  a  firm  basis  on 
which  to  work."  Symington,  the  practical  mechanic, 
put  this  theory  to  the  test  by  his  successful  experi- 
ments, first  on  Dalswinton  Lake,  and  then  on  the  Forth 
and  Clyde  Canal.  Fulton  and  Bell  afterwards  showed 
the  power  of  steamboats  in  navigating  the  rivers  of 
America  and  Britain. 

After  various  experiments,  it  was  proposed  to  unite 
England  and  America  by  steam.  Dr.  Lardner,  how- 
ever, delivered  a  lecture  before  the  British  Associa- 
tion, in  1838,  "proving"  that  steamers  could  never 
cross  the  Atlantic,  because  they  could  not  carry  suffi- 
cient coal  to  raise  steam  enough  during  the  voyage. 
But  this  theory  was  also  tested  by  experience  in  the 
same  year,  when  the  Sirius,  of  London,  left  Cork  for 
New  York,  and  made  the  passage  in  nineteen  days. 
Four  days  after  the  departure  of  the  Sirius  the  Great 
Western  left  Bristol  for  New  York,  and  made  the 
passage  in  thirteen  days  five  hours.*  The  problem 
was  solved,  and  great  ocean  steamers  have  ever  since 
passed  in  continuous  streams  between  the  shores  of 
England  and  America. 

In  an  age  of  progress,  one  invention  merely  paves 
the  way  for  another.  The  first  steamers  were  im- 
pelled by  means  of  paddle-wheels,  but  these  are  now 
almost  entirely  superseded  by  the  screw.  And  this, 
too,  is  an  invention  almost  of  yesterday.     It  was  only 

*  This  was  not  the  first  voyage  of  a  steamer  between  England  and 
America.  The  Savannah  made  the  passage  from  New  York  to  Liv- 
erpool as  early  as  1819  ;  but  steam  was  only  used  occasionally  during 
the  voyage.  In  1825  the  Enterprise,  with  engines  by  Maudslay, 
made  the  voyage  from  Falmouth  to  Calcutta  in  one  hundred  and  thir- 
teen days ;  and  in  1828  the  Cura$oa  made  the  voyage  between  Hol- 
land and  the  Dutch  West  Indies.  But,  in  all  these  cases,  steam  was 
used  as  an  auxiliary,  and  not  as  the  one  essential  means  of  propul- 
sion, as  in  the  case  of  the  Sirius  and  the  Great  Western,  which  were 
steam  voyages  only. 


Phineas  Pett. 


in  1840  that  the  Archimedes  was  fitted  as  a  screw 
yacht.  A  few  years  later,  in  1845,  the  Great  Britain, 
propelled  by  the  screw,  left  Liverpool  for  ~New  York, 
and  made  the  voyage  in  fourteen  days.  The  screw  is 
now  invariably  adopted  in  all  long  ocean  voyages. 

It  is  curious  to  look  back  and  observe  the  small 
beginnings  of  maritime  navigation.  As  regards  this 
country,  though  its  institutions  are  old,  modern  Eng- 
land is  still  young.  As  respects  its  mechanical  and 
scientific  achievements,  it  is  the  youngest  of  all  coun- 
tries. Watt's  steam-engine  was  the  beginning  of  our 
manufacturing  supremacy;  and  since  its  adoption  in- 
ventions and  discoveries  in  art  and  science,  within  the 
last  hundred  years,  have  succeeded  each  other  with 
extraordinary  rapidity.  In  1814  there  was  only  one 
steam- vessel  in  Scotland,  while  England  possessed  none 
at  all.  Now  the  British  mercantile  steamships  number 
about  five  thousand,  with  about  four  millions  of  aggre- 
gate tonnage.* 

In  olden  times  this  country  possessed  the  materials 
for  great  things,  as  well  as  the  men  fitted  to  develop 
them  into  great  results.  But  the  nation  was  slow  to 
awake  and  take  advantage  of  its  opportunities.  There 
was  no  enterprise,  no  commerce,  no  "  go  "  in  the  peo- 
ple. The  roads  were  frightfully  bad,  and  there  was 
little  communication  between  one  part  of  the  country 
and  another.  If  anything  important  had  to  be  done, 
we  used  to  send  for  foreigners  to  come  and  teach  us 
how  to  do  it.  We  sent  for  them  to  drain  our  fens,  to 
build  our  piers  and  harbors,  and  even  to  pump  our  wa- 
ter at  London  Bridge.  Though  a  seafaring  population 
lived  round  our  coasts,  we  did  not  fish  our  own  seas, 

*  "In  1862  the  steam-tonnage  of  the  country  was  537,000  tons; 
in  1872  it  was  1,537,000  tons;  and  in  1882  it  had  reached  3,835,000 
tons." — Mr.  Chamberlain's  Speech,  House  of  Commons,  19th  May, 

1884. 


Beginnings  of  English  Commerce.  5 

but  left  it  to  the  industrious  Dutchmen  to  catch  the 
fish  and  supply  our  markets.  It  was  not  until  the  year 
1787  that  the  Yarmouth  people  began  the  deep-sea  her- 
ring fishery;  and  yet  these  were  the  most  enterprising 
among  the  English  fishermen. 

English  commerce  also  had  very  slender  beginnings. 
At  the  commencement  of  the  fifteenth  century  England 
was  of  very  little  account  in  the  affairs  of  Europe. 
Indeed,  the  history  of  modern  England  is  nearly  coin- 
cident with  the  accession  of  the  Tudors  to  the  throne. 
With  the  exception  of  Calais  and  Dunkirk,  her  domin- 
ions on  the  Continent  had  been  wrested  from  her  by 
the  French.  The  country  at  home  had  been  made 
desolate  by  the  Wars  of  the  Roses.  The  population 
was  very  small,  and  had  been  kept  down  by  war,  pes- 
tilence, and  famine.*  The  chief  staple  wTas  wool,  which 
was  exported  to  Flanders  in  foreign  ships,  there  to  be 
manufactured  into  cloth.  Nearly  every  article  of  im- 
portance was  brought  from  abroad,  and  the  little  com- 
merce which  existed  was  in  the  hands  of  foreigners. 
The  seas  were  swept  by  privateers,  little  better  than 
pirates,  who  plundered  without  scruple  every  vessel, 
whether  friend  or  foe,  which  fell  in  their  way. 

The  British  navy  has  risen  from  very  low  begin- 
nings. The  English  fleet  had  fallen  from  its  high  es- 
tate since  the  reign  of  Edward  III.,  who  won  a  battle 
from  the  French  and  Flemings  in  1340,  with  two  hun- 
dred and  sixty  ships  ;  but  his  vessels  were  all  of  mod- 
erate size,  being  boats,  yachts,  and  caravels,  of  very 
small  tonnage.  According  to  the  contemporary  chron- 
icles, Weymouth,  Fowey,  Sandwich,  and  Bristol  were 
then  of  nearly  almost  as  much  importance  as  London,f 


*  The  last  visit  of  the  plague  was  in  1665. 

t  Roll  of  Edward  the  Third's  Fleet.     Cotton's  Library,  British  Mu- 
seum. 


6  Phineas  Pett. 


which  latter  city  only  furnished  twenty-five  vessels, 
with  six  hundred  and  sixty-two  mariners. 

The  Royal  Fleet  began  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VII. 
Only  six  or  seven  vessels  then  belonged  to  the  king, 
the  largest  being  the  Grace  de  Dieu,  of  comparatively 
small  tonnage.  The  custom  then  was  to  hire  ships 
from  the  Venetians,  the  Genoese,  the  Hanse  towns, 
and  other  trading  people;  and  as  soon  as  the  service 
for  which  the  vessels  so  hired  was  performed  they 
were  dismissed. 

When  Henry  VIII.  ascended  the  throne,  in  1509,  he 
directed  his  attention  to  the  state  of  the  navy.  Al- 
though the  insular  position  of  England  was  calculated 
to  stimulate  the  art  of  shipbuilding  more  than  in  most 
continental  countries,  our  best  ships  long  continued  to 
be  built  by  foreigners.  Henry  invited  from  abroad — 
especially  from  Italy,  where  the  art  of  shipbuilding 
had  made  the  greatest  progress — as  many  skilful  art- 
ists and  workmen  as  he  could  procure,  either  by  the 
hope  of  gain  or  the  high  honors  and  distinguished 
countenance  which  he  paid  them.  "By  incorporat- 
ing," says  Charnock,  "  these  useful  persons  among  his 
own  subjects,  he  soon  formed  a  corps  sufficient  to  rival 
those  states  which  had  rendered  themselves  most  dis- 
tinguished by  their  knowledge  in  this  art ;  so  that  the 
fame  of  Genoa  and  Venice,  which  had  long  excited  the 
envy  of  the  greater  part  of  Europe,  became  suddenly 
transferred  to  the  shores  of  Britain."  * 

In  fitting  out  his  fleet,  we  find  Henry  disbursing 
large  sums  to  foreigners  for  shipbuilding,  for  "har- 
ness," or  armor,  and  for  munitions  of  all  sorts.  The 
State  Papers  f  particularize  the  amounts  paid  to  Lewez 

*  Charnock's  "History  of  Marine  Architecture,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  89. 

t  State  Papers.  Henry  VIII.  Nos.  3496,  3616,  4633.  The  prin- 
cipal kinds  of  ordnance  at  that  time  were  these:  The  "Apostles,"  so 
called  from  the  head  of  an  apostle  which  they  bore;   "Curtows,"  or 


Reliance  upon  Foreigners. 


de  la  Fava  for  "harness;"  to  William  Gurre,  "bre- 
gandy-maker;"  and  to  Leonard  Friscobald  for  "  almayn 
ryvetts."  Francis  de  Errona,  a  Spaniard,  supplied  the 
gunpowder.  Among  the  foreign  mechanics  and  arti- 
sans employed  were  Hans  Popenruyter,  gun-founder  of 
Mechlin;  Robert  Sakfeld,  Robert  Skorer,  Fortuno  de 
Catalenago,  and  John  Cavelcant.  On  one  occasion, 
£2797  195.  4-JJ.  was  disbursed  for  guns  and  grind- 
stones. This  sum  must  be  multiplied  by  about  four,  to 
give  the  proper  present  value.  Popenruyter  seems  to 
have  been  the  great  gun-founder  of  the  age;  he  supplied 
the  principal  guns  and  gun-stores  for  the  English  navy, 
and  his  name  occurs  in  every  ordnance  account  of  the 
series,  generally  for  sums  of  the  largest  amounts. 

Henry  "VIII.  was  the  first  to  establish  royal  dock- 
yards— first  at  Woolwich,  then  at  Portsmouth,  and, 
thirdly,  at  Deptford — for  the  erection  and  repair  of 
ships.  Before  then  England  had  been  principally  de- 
pendent upon  Dutchmen  and  Venetians,  both  for  ships 
of  war  and  merchantmen.  The  sovereign  had  neither 
naval  arsenals  nor  dockyards,  nor  any  regular  estab- 
lishment of  civil  or  naval  affairs  to  provide  ships  of 
war.  Sir  Edward  Howard,  Lord  High  Admiral  of 
England,  at  the  accession  of  Henry  VIII. ,  actually  en- 
tered into  a  "  contract "  with  that  monarch  to  fiVht 
his  enemies.  This  singular  document  is  still  preserved 
in  the  state-paper  office.  Even  after  the  establishment 
of  royal  dockyards  the  sovereign — as  late  as  the  reign 
of  Elizabeth — entered  into  formal  contracts  with  ship- 
wrights for  the  repair  and  maintenance  of  ships,  as 
well  as  for  additions  to  the  fleet. 

The  king,  having  made  his  first  effort  at  establish- 
ing a  royal  navy,  sent  the  fleet  to  sea  against  the  ships 

"Courtaulx;"  "Culverins"  and  "Serpents;"  "Minions"  and  "Pot- 
guns;"  "Nurembergers,"  and  "  Bombards  "  or  mortars. 


8  Phineas  Pett. 


of  France.  The  Regent  was  the  ship  royal,  with  Sir 
Thomas  Knivet,  master  of  the  horse,  and  Sir  John 
Crew,  of  Devonshire,  as  captains.  The  fleet  amount- 
ed to  twenty-five  well-furnished  ships.  The  French 
fleet  were  thirty-nine  in  number.  They  met  in  Brit- 
tany Bay,  and  had  a  fierce  fight.  The  Regent  grap- 
pled with  a  great  carack  of  Brest ;  the  French,  on  the 
English  boarding  their  ship,  set  fire  to  the  gunpowder, 
and  both  ships  were  blown  up,  with  all  their  men.  The 
French  fleet  fled,  and  the  English  kept  the  seas.  The 
king,  hearing  of  the  loss  of  the  Regent,  caused  a  great 
ship  to  be  built,  the  like  of  which  had  never  before 
been  seen  in  England,  and  called  it  Harry  Grace  de 
Dieu. 

This  ship  was  constructed  by  foreign  artisans,  prin- 
cipally by  Italians,  and  was  launched  in  1515.  She 
was  said  to  be  of  a  thousand  tons'  portage — the  largest 
ship  in  England.  The  vessel  was  four-masted,  with 
two  round  tops  on  each  mast,  except  the  shortest  miz- 
zen.  She  had  a  high  forecastle  and  poop,  from  which 
the  crew  could  shoot  down  upon  the  deck  or  waist  of 
another  vessel.  The  object  was  to  have  a  sort  of  cas- 
tle at  each  end  of  the  ship.  This  style  of  ship-building 
was  doubtless  borrowed  from  the  Venetians,  then  the 
greatest  naval  power  in  Europe.  The  length  of  the 
masts,  the  height  of  the  ship  above  the  water's  edge, 
and  the  ornaments  and  decorations,  were  better  adapt- 
ed for  the  stillness  of  the  Adriatic  and  Mediterranean 
seas  than  for  the  boisterous  ocean  of  the  northern 
parts  of  Europe.*  The  story  long  prevailed  that  "  the 
Great  Harry  swept  a  dozen  flocks  of  sheep  off  the  Isle 
of  Man  with  her  bob-stay."  An  American  gentleman 
(N.  B.  Anderson,  LL.D.,  Boston)  informed  the  present 

*  The  sum  of  all  costs  of  the  Harry  Grace  de  Dieu  and  three  small 
galleys  was  £7708  5s.  3d  (S.P.O.  No.  5228,  Henry  VIIL). 


Ship-building  in  England. 


writer  that  this  saying  is  still  proverbial  among  the 
United  States  sailors. 

The  same  features  were  reproduced  in  merchant- 
ships.  Most  of  them  were  suited  for  defence,  to  pre- 
vent the  attacks  of  pirates,  which  swarmed  the  seas 
round  the  coast  at  that  time.  Ship-building  by  the 
natives,  in  private  shipyards,  was  in  a  miserable  con- 
dition. Mr.  Willet,  in  his  memoir  relative  to  the  navy, 
observes:  "It  is  said,  and  I  believe  with  truth,  that  at 
this  time  (the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century)  there 
was  not  a  private  builder  between  London  Bridge  and 
Gravesend  who  could  lay  down  a  ship  in  the  mould 
left  from  a  navy  board's  draught  without  applying  to 
a  tinker  who  lived  in  Knave's  Acre."  * 

Another  ship  of  some  note  built  at  the  instance  of 
Henry  VIII.  was  the  Mary  Hose,  of  the  portage  of  five 
hundred  tons.  We  find  her  in  the  "pond  at  Dept- 
ford,"  in  1515.  Seven  years  later,  in  the  thirtieth  year 
of  Henry  VIII.'s  reign,  she  was  sent  to  sea,  with  five 
other  English  ships  of  war,  to  protect  such  commerce 
as  then  existed  from  the  depredations  of  the  French 
and  Scotch  pirates.  The  Mary  Rose  was  sent,  many 
years  later  (in  1544),  with  the  English  fleet  to  the 
coast  of  France,  but  returned  with  the  rest  of  the  fleet 
to  Portsmouth  without  entering  into  any  engagement. 
While  laid  at  anchor,  not  far  from  the  place  where  the 
Royal  George  afterwards  went  down,  and  the  ship  was 
under  repair,  her  gun-ports  being  very  low  when  she 
was  laid  over,  "the  shipp  turned,  the  water  entered, 
and  sodainly  she  sanke." 

What  was  to  be  done?  There  were  no  English  en- 
gineers or  workmen  who  could  raise  the  ship.  Ac- 
cordingly, Henry  VIII.  sent  to  Venice  for  assistance, 
and  when  the  men  arrived,  Pietro  de  Andreas  was  de- 


*  Charnoek,  vol.  ii.  p.  47  (note). 
1* 


10  Phineas  Pett. 


spatched  with  the  Venetian  marines  and  carpenters 
to  raise  the  Mary  Rose.  Sixty  English  mariners  were 
appointed  to  attend  upon  them.  The  Venetians  were 
then  the  skilled  "heads,"  the  English  were  only  the 
"hands."  Nevertheless,  they  failed  with  all  their  ef- 
forts, and  it  was  not  until  the  year  1836  that  Mr.  Dean, 
the  engineer,  succeeded  in  raising  not  only  the  Royal 
George,  but  the  Mary  Rose,  and  cleared  the  roadstead 
at  Portsmouth  of  the  remains  of  the  sunken  ships. 

When  Elizabeth  ascended  the  throne,  in  1558,  the 
commerce  and  navigation  of  England  were  still  of 
very  small  amount.  The  population  of  the  kingdom 
amounted  to  only  about  five  millions — not  much  more 
than  the  population  of  London  is  now.  The  country 
had  little  commerce,  and  what  it  had  was  still  mostly 
in  the  hands  of  foreigners.  The  Hanse  towns  had  their 
large  entrepot  for  merchandise  in  Cannon  Street,  on  the 
site  of  the  present  Cannon  Street  Station.  The  wool 
was  still  sent  abroad  to  Flanders  to  be  fashioned  into 
cloth,  and  even  garden  produce  was  principally  im- 
ported from  Holland.  Dutch,  Germans,  Flemings, 
French,  and  Venetians  continued  to  be  our  principal 
workmen.  Our  iron  was  mostly  obtained  from  Spain 
and  Germany.  The  best  arms  and  armor  came  from 
France  and  Italy.  Linen  was  imported  from  Flanders 
and  Holland,  though  the  best  came  from  Rheims. 
Even  the  coarsest  dowlas,  or  sailcloth,  was  imported 
from  the  Low  Countries. 

The  royal  ships  continued  to  be  of  very  small  bur- 
den, and  the  mercantile  ships  were  still  smaller.  The 
queen,  however,  did  what  she  could  to  improve  the 
number  and  burden  of  our  ships.  "  Foreigners,"  says 
Camden,  "stiled  her  the  restorer  of  naval  glory  and 
Queen  of  the  Northern  Seas."  In  imitation  of  the 
queen,  opulent  subjects  built  ships  of  force;  and  in 
course   of   time   England  no   longer   depended   upon 


Commerce  of  Spain  and  the  Netherlands.      11 

Hamburg,  Dantzic,  Geneva,  and  Venice  for  her  fleet 
in  time  of  war. 

Spain  was  then  the  most  potent  power  in  Europe, 
and  the  Netherlands,  which  formed  part  of  the  domin- 
ions of  Spain,  was  the  centre  of  commercial  prosperity. 
Holland  possessed  above  eight  hundred  good  ships,  of 
from  two  hundred  to  seven  hundred  tons'  burden,  and 
above  six  hundred  busses,  for  fishing,  of  from  one 
hundred  to  two  hundred  tons.  Amsterdam  and  Ant- 
werp were  in  the  heyday  of  their  prosperity.  Some- 
times five  hundred  great  ships  were  to  be  seen  lying 
together  before  Amsterdam ;  *  whereas  England,  at 
that  time,  had  not  four  merchant  ships  of  four  hun- 
dred tons  each !  Antwerp,  however,  was  the  most  im- 
portant city  in  the  Low  Countries.  It  was  no  uncom- 
mon thing  to  see  as  many  as  two  thousand  five  hundred 
ships  in  the  Scheldt,  laden  with  merchandise.  Some- 
times five  hundred  ships  would  come  and  go  from 
Antwerp  in  one  day,  bound  to  or  returning  from  the 
distant  parts  of  the  world.  The  place  was  immensely 
rich,  and  was  frequented  by  Spaniards,  Germans,  Danes, 
English,  Italians,  and  Portuguese,  the  Spaniards  being 
the  most  numerous.  Camden,  in  his  history  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,  relates  that  our  general  trade  with  the  Neth- 
erlands in  1564  amounted  to  twelve  millions  of  ducats, 
five  millions  of  which  was  for  English  cloth  alone. 

The  religious  persecutions  of  Philip  II.  of  Spain  and 
of  Charles  IX.  of  France  shortly  supplied  England  with 
the  population  of  which  she  stood  in  need — active,  in- 
dustrious, intelligent  artisans.  Philip  set  up  the  Inqui- 
sition in  Flanders,  and  in  a  few  years  more  than  fifty 
thousand  persons  were  deliberately  murdered.  The 
Duchess  of  Parma,  writing  to  Philip  II.  in  1567,  in- 
formed him  that  in  a  few  days  above  one  hundred 

*  Macpherson,  "Annals  of  Commerce,"  vol.  ii.  p.  126. 


12  Phineas  Pett. 


thousand  men  had  already  left  the  country  with  their 
money  and  goods,  and  that  more  were  following  every 
day.  They  fled  to  Germany,  to  Holland,  and,  above 
all,  to  England,  which  they  hailed  as  Asylum  Christi. 
The  emigrants  settled  in  the  decayed  cities  and  towns 
of  Canterbury,  Norwich,  Sandwich,  Colchester,  Maid- 
stone, Southampton,  and  many  other  places,  where  they 
carried  on  their  manufactures  of  woollen,  linen,  and 
silk,  and  established  many  new  branches  of  industry.* 

Five  years  later,  in  1572,  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bar- 
tholomew took  place  in  France,  during  which  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  bishop  Perefixe  alleges  that  one  hundred 
thousand  persons  were  put  to  death  because  of  their 
religious  opinions.  All  this  persecution,  carried  on  so 
near  the  English  shores,  rapidly  increased  the  number 
of  foreign  fugitives  into  England,  which  was  followed 
by  the  rapid  advancement  of  the  industrial  arts  in  this 
country. 

The  asylum  which  Queen  Elizabeth  gave  to  the  per- 
secuted foreigners  brought  down  upon  her  the  hatred 
of  Philip  II.  and  Charles  IX.  When  they  found  that 
they  could  not  prevent  her  furnishing  them  with  an  asy- 
lum, they  proceeded  to  compass  her  death.  She  was 
excommunicated  by  the  pope,  and  Vitelli  was  hired 
to  assassinate  her.  Philip  also  proceeded  to  prepare 
the  Sacred  Armada  for  the  subjugation  of  the  English 
nation,  and  he  was  master  of  the  most  powerful  army 
and  navy  in  the  world. 

Modern  England  was  then  in  the  throes  of  her  birth. 
She  had  not  yet  reached  the  vigor  of  her  youth,  though 
she  was  full  of  life  and  energy.  She  was  about  to  be- 
come the  England  of  free  thought,  commerce,  and 
manufactures;  to  plough  the  ocean  with  her  navies, 

*  "The  Huguenots:  their  Settlements,  Churches,  and  Industries, 
in  England  and  Ireland,"  ch.  iv. 


The  Great  Seamen  of  England.  1*3 

and  to  plant  her  colonies  over  the  earth.  Up  to  the 
accession  of  Elizabeth  she  had  done  little,  but  now 
she  was  about  to  do  much.  It  was  a  period  of  sudden 
emancipation  of  thought,  and  of  immense  fertility  and 
originality.  The  poets  and  prose  writers  of  the  time 
united  the  freshness  of  youth  with  the  vigor  of  man- 
hood. Among  these  were  Spenser,  Shakespeare,  Sir 
Philip  Sidney,  the  Fletchers,  Marlowe,  and  Ben  Jon- 
son.  Among  the  statesmen  of  Elizabeth  were  Burleigh, 
Leicester,  Walsingham,  Howard,  and  Sir  Nicholas  Ba- 
con. But  perhaps  greatest  of  all  were  the  sailors,  Avho, 
as  Clarendon  said,  "were  a  nation  by  themselves;" 
and  their  leaders — Drake,  Frobisher,  Cavendish,  Haw- 
kins, Howard,  Raleigh,  Davis,  and  many  more  distin- 
guished seamen. 

They  were  the  representative  men  of  their  time,  the 
creation,  in  a  great  measure,  of  the  national  spirit. 
They  were  the  offspring  of  long  generations  of  seamen 
and  lovers  of  the  sea.  They  could  not  have  been  great 
but  for  the  nation  which  gave  them  birth,  and  imbued 
them  with  their  worth  and  spirit.  The  great  sailors, 
for  instance,  could  not  have  originated  in  a  nation  of 
mere  landsmen.  They  simply  took  the  lead  in  a  coun- 
try whose  coasts  were  fringed  with  sailors.  Their 
greatness  was  but  the  result  of  an  excellence  in  sea- 
manship which  prevailed  widely  around  them. 

The  age  of  English  maritime  adventure  only  began 
in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth.  England  had  then  no  colo- 
nies, no  foreign  possessions  whatever.  The  first  of  her 
extensive  colonial  possessions  was  established  in  this 
reign.  "  Ships,  colonies,  and  commerce  "  began  to  be 
the  national  motto — not  that  colonies  make  ships  and 
commerce,  but  that  ships  and  commerce  make  colonies. 
Yet  what  cockle-shells  of  ships  our  pioneer  navigators 
first  sailed  in! 

Although  John  Cabot  or  Gabota,  of  Bristol,  origi- 


14  Phineas  Pett. 


nally  a  eitizen  of  Venice,  had  discovered  the  continent 
of  North  America  in  1496,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VII., 
he  made  no  settlement  there,  but  returned  to  Bristol 
with  his  four  small  ships.  Columbus  did  not  see  the 
continent  of  America  until  two  years  later,  in  1498, 
his  first  discoveries  being  the  islands  of  the  West  In- 
dies. 

It  was  not  until  the  year  1553  that  an  attempt  was 
made  to  discover  a  northwest  passage  to  Cathaya  or 
China.  Sir  Hugh  Willoughby  was  put  in  command 
of  the  expedition,  which  consisted  of  three  ships — the 
Bona  HJsperanza,  the  Bona  Ventura  (Captain  Chan- 
cellor), and  the  Bona  Confidentia  (Captain  Durforth) 
— most  probably  ships  built  by  Venetians.  Sir  Hugh 
reached  seventy-two  degrees  of  north  latitude,  and  was 
compelled,  by  the  buffeting  of  the  winds,  to  take  ref- 
uge with  Captain  Durforth's  vessel  at  Arcina  Keca,  in 
Russian  Lapland,  where  the  two  captains  and  the  crews 
of  these  ships,  seventy  in  number,  were  frozen  to  death. 
In  the  following  year  some  Russian  fishermen  found 
Sir  John  Willoughby  sitting  dead  in  his  cabin,  with 
his  diary  and  other  papers  beside  him. 

Captain  Chancellor  was  more  fortunate.  He  reached 
Archangel  in  the  White  Sea,  where  no  ship  had  ever 
been  seen  before.  He  pointed  out  to  the  English  the 
way  to  the  whale  fishery  at  Spitzbergen,  and  opened 
up  a  trade  with  the  northern  parts  of  Russia.  Two 
years  later,  in  1556,  Stephen  Burroughs  sailed  with 
one  small  ship,  which  entered  the  Kara  Sea ;  but  he 
was  compelled  by  frost  and  ice  to  return  to  England. 
The  strait  which  he  entered  is  still  called  "Burrough 
Strait." 

It  was  not,  however,  until  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  that 
great  maritime  adventures  began  to  be  made.  Navi- 
gators were  not  so  venturous  as  they  afterwards  be- 
came.    Without  proper  methods  of  navigation,  they 


The  Great  Navigators.  15 

were  apt  to  be  carried  away  to  the  south,  across  an 
ocean  without  limit.  In  1565  a  young  captain,  Martin 
Frobisher,  came  into  notice.  At  the  age  of  twenty- 
five  he  captured  in  the  South  Seas  the  Flying  Spirit, 
a  Spanish  ship  laden  with  a  rich  cargo  of  cochineal. 
Four  years  later,  in  1569,  he  made  his  first  attempt  to 
discover  the  northwest  passage  to  the  Indies,  being 
assisted  by  Ambrose  Dudley,  Earl  of  Warwick.  The 
ships  in  which  they  set  out  were  three  in  number:  the 
Gabriel,  of  from  fifteen  to  twenty  tons;  the  Michael,  of 
from  twenty  to  twenty-five  tons,  or  half  the  size  of  a 
modern  fishing-boat ;  and  a  pinnace,  of  from  seven  to 
ten  tons !  The  aggregate  of  the  crews  of  the  three 
ships  was  only  thirty-five,  men  and  boys.  Think  of 
the  daring  of  these  early  navigators  in  attempting  to 
pass  by  the  North  Pole  to  Cathay  through  snow  and 
storm  and  ice  in  such  miserable  little  cockboats!  The 
pinnace  was  lost;  the  Michael,  under  Owen  Griffith,  a 
Welshman,  deserted;  and  Martin  Frobisher,  in  the  Ga- 
briel, went  alone  into  the  northwestern  sea  ! 

He  entered  the  great  bay,  since  called  Hudson's  Bay, 
by  Frobisher's  Strait.  He  returned  to  England  with- 
out making  the  discovery  of  the  passage,  which  long 
remained  the  problem  of  arctic  voyagers.  Yet  ten 
years  later,  in  1577,  he  made  another  voyage,  and 
though  he  made  his  second  attempt  with  one  of  Queen 
Elizabeth's  own  ships  and  two  barks,  with  one  hundred 
and  forty  persons  in  all,  he  was  as  unsuccessful  as  be- 
fore. He  brought  home  some  supposed  gold  ore,  and, 
on  the  strength  of  the  stones  containing  gold,  a  third 
expedition  went  out  in  the  following  year.  After  los- 
ing one  of  the  ships,  consuming  the  provisions,  and 
suffering  greatly  from  ice  and  storms,  the  fleet  returned 
home  one  by  one.  The  supposed  gold  ore  proved  to 
be  only  glittering  sand. 

While  Frobisher  was  seeking  El-Dorado  in  the  north, 


16  Phineas  Pett. 


Francis  Drake  was  finding  it  in  the  south.  He  was  a 
sailor,  every  inch  of  him.  "  Pains,  with  patience  in 
his  youth,"  says  Fuller,  "knit  the  joints  of  his  soul, 
and  made  them  more  solid  and  compact."  At  an  early 
age,  when  carrying  on  a  coasting  trade,  his  imagination 
was  inflamed  by  the  exploits  of  his  protector,  Hawkins, 
in  the  New  World,  and  he  joined  him  in  his  last  un- 
fortunate adventure  on  the  Spanish  Main.  He  was 
not,  however,  discouraged  by  his  first  misfortune,  but, 
having  assembled  about  him  a  number  of  seamen  who 
believed  in  him,  he  made  other  adventures  to  the  West 
Indies,  and  learned  the  navigation  of  that  part  of  the 
ocean.  In  1570  he  obtained  a  regular  commission  from 
Queen  Elizabeth,  though  he  sailed  his  own  ships,  and 
made  his  own  ventures.  Every  Englishman  who  had 
the  means  was  at  liberty  to  fit  out  his  own  ships  ;  and, 
with  tolerable  vouchers,  he  was  able  to  procure  a  com- 
mission from  the  court,  and  proceed  to  sea  at  his  own 
risk  and  cost.  Thus  the  naval  enterprise  and  pio- 
neering of  new  countries  under  Elizabeth  was  almost 
altogether  a  matter  of  private  enterprise  and  adven- 
ture. 

In  1572  the  butchery  of  the  Huguenots  took  place 
at  Paris  and  throughout  France  ;  while  at  the  same 
time  the  murderous  power  of  Philip  II.  reigned  su- 
preme in  the  Netherlands.  The  sailors  knew  what 
they  had  to  expect  from  the  Spanish  king  in  the  event 
of  his  obtaining  his  threatened  revenge  upon  England; 
and  under  their  chosen  chiefs  they  proceeded  to  make 
war  upon  him.  In  the  year  of  the  Massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew,  Drake  set  sail  for  the  Spanish  Main  in 
the  Pasha,  of  seventy  tons,  accompanied  by  the  Swan, 
of  twenty-five  tons;  the  united  crews  of  the  vessels 
amounting  to  seventy-three  men  and  boys.  With  this 
insignificant  force,  Drake  made  great  havoc  among 
the  Spanish  shipping  at  Nombre  de  Dios.    He  partially 


Francis  Drake's  Naval  Enterprises.  17 

crossed  the  Isthmus  of  Darien,  and  obtained  his  first 
sight  of  the  great  Pacific  Ocean.  He  returned  to 
England  in  August,  1573,  with  his  frail  barks  crammed 
with  treasure. 

A  few  years  later,  in  1577,  he  made  his  ever- 
memorable  expedition.  Charnock  says  it  was  "  an 
attempt  in  its  nature  so  bold  and  unprecedented,  that 
we  should  scarcely  know  whether  to  applaud  it  as  a 
brave,  or  condemn  it  as  a  rash  one,  but  for  its  success." 
The  squadron  with  which  he  sailed  for  South  America 
consisted  of  five  vessels,  the  largest  of  which,  the  Peli- 
can, was  only  of  one  hundred  tons'  burden;  the  next, 
the  Elizabeth,  was  of  eighty;  the  third,  the  Swan,  a  fly- 
boat,  was  of  fifty;  the  Mary  gold  bark,  of  thirty;  and 
the  Christopher,  a  pinnace,  of  fifteen  tons.  The  united 
crews  of  these  vessels  amounted  to  only  one  hundred 
and  sixty-four,  gentlemen  and  sailors. 

The  gentlemen  went  with  Drake  "to  learn  the  art 
of  navigation."  After  various  adventures  along  the 
South  American  coast,  the  little  fleet  passed  through 
the  Straits  of  Magellan,  and  entered  the  Pacific  Ocean. 
Drake  took  an  immense  amount  of  booty  from  the 
Spanish  towns  along  the  coast,  and  captured  the  royal 
galleon,  the  Cacafuego,  laden  with  treasure.  After 
trying  in  vain  to  discover  a  passage  home  by  the 
northeastern  ocean,  through  what  is  now  known  as 
Behring  Straits,  he  took  shelter  in  Port  San  Francisco, 
which  he  took  possession  of  in  the  name  of  the  Queen 
of  England,  and  called  New  Albion.  He  eventually 
crossed  the  Pacific  for  the  Moluccas  and  Java,  from 
which  he  sailed  right  across  the  Indian  Ocean,  and  by 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  England,  thus  making  the 
circumnavigation  of  the  world.  He  was  absent  with 
his  little  fleet  for  about  two  years  and  ten  months. 

Not  less  extraordinary  was  the  voyage  of  Captain 
Cavendish,  who   made   the   circumnavigation   of   the 


18  Phineas  Pett. 


globe  at  Lis  own  expense.  He  set  out  from  Plymouth, 
in  three  small  vessels  on  the  21st  of  July,  1556.  One 
vessel  was  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  tons,  the  second 
of  sixty  tons,  and  the  third  of  forty  tons — not  much 
bigger  than  a  Thames  yacht.  The  united  crews,  of 
officers,  men,  and  boys,  did  not  exceed  one  hundred 
and  twenty-three  !  Cavendish  sailed  along  the  South 
American  continent,  and  made  through  the  Straits  of 
Magellan,  reaching  the  Pacific  Ocean.  He  burned  and 
plundered  the  Spanish  settlements  along  the  coast, 
captured  some  Spanish  ships,  and  took  by  boarding 
the  galleon  St.  Anna,  with  122,000  Spanish  dollars  on 
board.  He  then  sailed  across  the  Pacific  to  the  La- 
drone  Islands,  and  returned  home  through  the  Straits 
of  Java  and  the  Indian  Archipelago  by  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope,  and  reached  England  after  an  absence  of 
two  years  and  a  month. 

The  sacred  and  invincible  Armada  was  now  ready. 
Philip  II.  was  determined  to  put  down  those  English 
adventurers  who  had  swept  the  waters  of  Spain  and 
plundered  his  galleons  on  the  high  seas.  The  English 
sailors  knew  that  the  sword  of  Philip  was  forged  in 
the  gold-mines  of  South  America,  and  that  the  only 
way  to  defend  their  country  was  to  intercept  the  plun- 
der on  its  voyage  home  to  Spain.  But  the  sailors  and 
their  captains  —  Drake,  Hawkins,  Frobisher,  Howard, 
Grenville,  Raleigh,  and  the  rest — could  not  altogether 
interrupt  the  enterprise  of  the  King  of  Spain.  The 
Armada  sailed,  and  came  in  sight  of  the  English  coast 
on  the  20th  of  July,  1588. 

The  struggle  was  of  an  extraordinary  character. 
On  the  one  side  was  the  most  powerful  naval  arma- 
ment that  had  ever  put  to  sea.  It  consisted  of  six 
squadrons  of  sixty  fine  large  ships,  the  smallest  being 
of  seven  hundred  tons.  Besides  these  were  four  gi- 
gantic galleasses,  each  carrying  fifty  guns,  four  large 


Contest  with  the  Sacred  Armada.  1 0 

armed  galleys,  fifty  -  six  armed  merchant  ships,  and 
twenty  caravels — in  all,  one  hundred  and  forty-nine 
vessels.  On  board  were  eight  thousand  sailors,  twenty 
thousand  soldiers,  and  a  large  number  of  galley-slaves. 
The  ships  carried  provisions  enough  for  six  months' 
consumption,  and  the  supply  of  ammunition  was  enor- 
mous. 

On  the  other  side  was  the  small  English  fleet  under 
Hawkins  and  Drake.  The  royal  ships  were  only  thir- 
teen in  number ;  the  rest  were  contributed  by  private 
enterprise,  there  being  only  thirty-eight  vessels  of  all 
sorts  and  sizes,  including  cutters  and  pinnaces,  carry- 
ing the  queen's  flag.  The  principal  armed  merchant 
ships  were  provided  by  London,  Southampton,  Bristol, 
and  the  other  southern  ports.  Drake  was  followed  by 
some  privateers;  Hawkins  had  four  or  five  sbij:>s,  and 
Howard  of  Effingham  two.  The  fleet  was,  however, 
very  badly  found  in  provisions  and  ammunition. 
There  was  only  a  week's  provisions  on  board,  and 
scarcely  enough  ammunition  for  one  day's  hard  fight- 
ing. But  the  ships,  small  though  they  were,  were  in 
good  condition.  They  could  sail,  whether  in  pursuit  or 
in  flight,  for  the  men  who  navigated  them  were  thor- 
ough sailors. 

The  success  of  the  defence  was  due  to  tact,  courage, 
and  seamanship.  At  the  first  contact  of  the  fleets,  the 
Spanish  towering  galleons  wished  to  close,  to  grapple 
with  their  contemptuous  enemies,  and  crush  them  to 
death.  "  Come  on  !"  said  Medina  Sidonia.  Lord 
Howard  came  on  with  the  Ark  and  three  other  ships, 
and  fired  with  immense  rapidity  into  the  great  floating 
castles.  The  San  Mateo  luffed,  and  wanted  them  to 
board.  "  No  !  not  yet !"  The  English  tacked,  re- 
turned, fired  again,  riddled  the  Spaniards,  and  shot 
away  in  the  eye  of  the  wind.  To  the  astonishment 
of  the  Spanish  admiral,  the  English  ships  approached 


20  Phineas  Pett 


him  or  left  him  just  as  they  chose.  "  The  enemy  pur- 
sue me,"  wrote  the  Spanish  admiral  to  the  Prince  of 
Parma;  "they  fire  upon  me  most  days  from  morning 
till  nightfall,  but  they  will  not  close  and  grapple, 
though  I  have  given  them  every  opportunity."  The 
Capita?ia,  a  galleon  of  twelve  hundred  tons,  dropped 
behind,  struck  her  flag  to  Drake,  and  increased  the 
store  of  the  English  fleet  by  some  tons  of  gunpowder. 
Another  Spanish  ship  surrendered,  and  another  store 
of  powder  and  shot  was  rescued  for  the  destruction  of 
the  Armada.  And  so  it  happened  throughout,  until 
the  Spanish  fleet  was  driven  to  wreck  and  ruin,  and  the 
remaining  ships  were  scattered  by  the  tempests  of  the 
north.  After  all,  Philip  proved  to  be,  what  the  sail- 
ors called  him,  only  "  a  Colossus  stuffed  with  clouts." 

The  English  sailors  followed  up  their  advantage; 
they  went  on  "  singeing  the  King  of  Spain's  beard." 
Private  adventurers  fitted  up  a  fleet  under  the  com- 
mand of  Drake,  and  invaded  the  mainland  of  Spain. 
They  took  the  lower  part  of  the  town  of  Corunna; 
sailed  to  the  Tagus,  and  captured  a  fleet  of  ships  laden 
with  wheat  and  warlike  stores  for  a  new  armada. 
They  next  sacked  Vigo,  and  returned  to  England  with 
one  hundred  and  fifty  pieces  of  cannon  and  a  rich 
booty.  The  Earl  of  Cumberland  sailed  to  the  West 
Indies  on  a  private  adventure,  and  captured  more 
Spanish  prizes.  In  1590,  ten  English  merchantmen,  re- 
turning from  the  Levant,  attacked  twelve  Spanish  gal- 
leons, and,  after  six  hours'  contest,  put  them  to  flight 
with  great  loss.  In  the  following  year  three  mer- 
chant ships  set  sail  for  the  East  Indies,  and  in  the 
course  of  their  voyage  took  several  Portuguese  ves- 
sels. 

A  powerful  Spanish  fleet  still  kept  the  seas,  and  in 
1591  they  conquered  the  noble  Sir  Richard  Grenville 
at  the  Azores — fifteen  great  Spanish  galleons  against 


Naval  Adventures  against  /Spain.  21 

one  queen's  ship,  the  Revenge.  In  1593  two  of  the 
queen's  ships,  accompanied  by  a  number  of  merchant 
ships,  sailed  for  the  West  Indies,  under  Burroughs, 
Frobisher,  and  Cross,  and  among  their  other  captures 
they  took  the  greatest  of  all  the  East  India  caracks,  a 
vessel  of  sixteen  hundred  tons,  seven  hundred  men, 
and  thirty-six  brass  cannon,  laden  with  a  magnificent 
cargo.  She  was  taken  to  Dartmouth,  and  surprised  all 
who  saw  her,  being  the  largest  ship  that  had  ever  been 
seen  in  England.  In  1594  Captain  James  Lancaster 
set  sail  with  three  ships  upon  a  voyage  of  adventure. 
He  was  joined  by  some  Dutch  and  Spanish  vessels. 
The  result  was,  that  they  captured  thirty-nine  of  the 
Spanish  ships.  Sir  Amias  Preston,  Sir  John  Hawkins, 
and  Sir  Francis  Drake  also  continued  their  action  upon 
the  seas.  Lord  Admiral  Howard  and  the  Earl  of  Essex 
made  their  famous  attack  upon  Cadiz  for  the  purpose 
of  destroying  the  new  armada ;  they  demolished  all 
the  forts,  sank  eleven  of  the  King  of  Spain's  best  ships, 
forty-four  merchant  ships,  and  brought  home  much 
booty. 

Nor  was  maritime  discovery  neglected.  The  plant- 
ing of  new  colonies  began,  for  the  English  people  had 
already  begun  to  swarm.  In  1578,  Sir  Humphrey  Gil- 
bert planted  Newfoundland  for  the  queen.  In  1584, 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh  planted  the  first  settlement  in 
Virginia.  Nor  was  the  northwest  passage  neglected; 
for  in  1580,  Captain  Pett  (a  name  famous  on  the 
Thames)  set  sail  from  Harwich  in  the  George,  accom- 
panied by  Captain  Jackman  in  the  William.  They 
reached  the  ice  in  the  North  Sea,  but  were  compelled 
to  return  without  effecting  their  purpose.  Will  it  be 
believed  that  the  George  was  only  of  forty  tons,  and 
that  its  crew  consisted  of  nine  men  and  a  boy;  and 
that  the  William  was  of  twenty  tons,  with  five  men 
and  a  boy?     The  wonder  is  that  these  little  vessels 


22  Phineas  Pett. 


should  resist  the  terrible  ice-fields,  and  return  to  Eng- 
land again  with  their  hardy  crews. 

Then,  in  1585,  another  of  our  adventurous  sailors, 
John  Davis,  of  Sandridge  on  the  Dart,  set  sail  with 
two  barks,  the  Sunshine  and  the  Moonshine,  of  fifty 
and  thirty-five  tons  respectively,  and  discovered  in  the 
far  northwest  the  strait  which  now  bears  his  name. 
He  was  driven  back  by  the  ice;  but,  undeterred  by 
his  failure,  he  set  out  on  a  second  and  then  on  a  third 
voyage  of  discovery  in  the  two  following  years.  But 
he  never  succeeded  in  discovering  the  northwest  pas- 
sage. It  all  reads  like  a  mystery — these  repeated,  de- 
termined, and  energetic  attempts  to  discover  a  new 
way  of  reaching  the  fabled  region  of  Cathay. 

In  these  early  times  the  Dutch  were  not  unworthy 
rivals  of  the  English.  After  they  had  succeeded  in 
throwing  off  the  Spanish  yoke  and  achieved  their  in- 
dependence, they  became  one  of  the  most  formidable 
of  maritime  powers.  In  the  course  of  another  century 
Holland  possessed  more  colonies,  and  had  a  larger 
share  of  the  carrying  trade  of  the  world,  than  Britain. 
It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  the  Dutch  republic  should 
take  an  interest  in  the  northwest  passage  ;  and  the 
Dutch  sailors,  by  their  enterprise  and  bravery,  were 
among  the  first  to  point  the  way  to  arctic  discovery. 
Barents  and  Behring,  above  all  others,  proved  the 
courage  and  determination  of  their  heroic  ancestors. 

The  romance  of  the  East  India  Company  begins  with 
an  advertisement  in  the  London  Gazette  of  1599,  tow- 
ards the  end  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  As 
with  all  other  enterprises  of  the  nation,  it  was  estab- 
lished by  private  means.  The  company  was  started 
with  a  capital  of  £72,000  in  £50  shares.  The  adven- 
turers bought  four  vessels  of  an  average  burden  of 
three  hundred  and  fifty  tons.  These  were  stocked  with 
provisions,  "  Norwich  stuffs,"  and  other  merchandise. 


Beginning  of  the  East  India  Company.       23 

The  tiny  fleet  sailed  from  Billingsgate  on  the  13th 
February,  1601.  It  went  by  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope 
to  the  East  Indies,  under  the  command  of  Captain 
James  Lancaster.  It  took  no  less  than  sixteen  months 
to  reach  the  Indian  Archipelago.  The  little  fleet 
reached  Acheen  in  June,  1602.  The  king  of  the  terri- 
tory received  the  visitors  with  courtesy,  and  exchanged 
spices  with  them  freely.  The  four  vessels  sailed  home- 
ward, taking  possession  of  the  island  of  St.  Helena  on 
their  way  back;  having  been  absent  exactly  thirty-one 
months.  The  profits  of  the  first  voyage  proved  to  be 
about  one  hundred  per  cent.  Such  was  the  origin  of 
the  great  East  India  Company,  now  expanded  into  an 
empire,  and  containing  about  two  hundred  millions  of 
people. 

To  return  to  the  shipping  and  the  mercantile  marine 
of  the  time  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  The  number  of  royal 
ships  was  only  thirteen,  the  rest  of  the  navy  consisting 
of  merchant  ships,  which  were  hired,  and  discharged 
when  their  purpose  was  served.*  According  to  Wheel- 
er, at  the  accession  of  the  queen,  there  were  not  more 
than  four  ships  belonging  to  the  river  Thames,  except- 
ing those  of  the  royal  navy,  which  were  over  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  tons  in  burden ;f  and  after  forty  years, 
the  whole  of  the  merchant  ships  of  England  over  one 
hundred  tons  amounted  to  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
five,  only  a  few  of  these  being  of  five  hundred  tons. 
In  1588  the  number  had  increased  to  one  hundred  and 
fifty,  "  of  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  tons  one  with 
another,  employed  in  trading  voyages  to  all  parts  and 
countries."  The  principal  shipping  which  frequented 
the  English  ports  still  continued  to  be  foreign — Italian, 
Flemish,  and  German. 

*  Macpherson,  "Annals  of  Commerce,"  vol.  ii.  p.  156. 
t  Ibid.  vol.  ii.  p.  85. 


24  Phineas  Pett. 


Liverpool,  now  possessing  the  largest  shipping  ton- 
nage in  the  world,  had  not  yet  come  into  existence.  It 
was  little  better  than  a  fishing  village.  The  people  of 
the  place  presented  a  petition  to  the  queen,  praying 
her  to  remit  a  subsidy  which  had  been  imposed  upon 
them,  and  speaking  of  their  native  place  as  "  her 
majesty's  poor  decayed  town  of  Liverpool."  In  1565, 
seven  years  after  Queen  Elizabeth  began  to  reign,  the 
number  of  vessels  belonging  to  Liverpool  was  only 
twelve.  The  largest  was  of  forty  tons'  burden,  with 
twelve  men,  and  the  smallest  was  a  boat  of  six  tons, 
with  three  men.* 

James  I.,  on  his  accession  to  the  throne  of  England 
in  1603,  called  in  all  the  ships  of  war,  as  well  as  the 
numerous  privateers  which  had  been  employed  during 
the  previous  reign  in  making  war  against  the  commerce 
of  Spain,  and  declared  himself  to  be  at  peace  with  all 
the  world.  James  was  as  peaceful  as  a  Quaker.  He 
was  not  a  fighting  king,  and,  partly  on  this  account, 
he  was  not  popular.  He  encouraged  manufactures  in 
wool,  silk,  and  tapestry.  He  gave  every  encourage- 
ment to  the  mercantile  and  colonizing  adventurers  to 
plant  and  improve  the  rising  settlements  of  Virginia, 
New  England,  and  Newfoundland.  He  also  promoted 
the  trade  to  the  East  Indies.  Attempts  continued  to 
be  made,  by  Hudson,  Poole,  Button,  Hall,  Baffin,  and 
other  courageous  seamen,  to  discover  the  northwest 
passage,  but  always  without  effect. 

The  shores  of  England  being  still  much  infested  by 


*  Picton's  "Selections  from  the  Municipal  Archives  and  Records 
of  Liverpool,"  p.  90.  About  a  hundred  years  later,  in  1757,  the  gross 
customs  receipts  of  Liverpool  had  increased  to  £198,946  ;  while  those 
of  Bristol  were  as  much  as  £351,211.  In  1883  the  amount  of  ton- 
nage of  Liverpool,  inwards  and  outwards,  was  8,527,531  tons,  and  the 
total  dock  revenue  for  the  year  was  £1,273,752 ! 


King  James  and  the  Navy.  25 

Algerioe  and  other  pirates,*  King  James  found  it 
necessary  to  maintain  the  ships  of  war  in  order  to  pro- 
tect navigation  and  commerce.  He  nearly  doubled  the 
ships  of  the  royal  navy,  and  increased  the  number  from 
thirteen  to  twenty-four.  Their  size,  however,  contin- 
ued small,  both  royal  and  merchant  ships.  Sir  William 
Monson  says  that  at  the  accession  of  James  I.  there 
were  not  above  four  merchant  ships  in  England  of 
four  hundred  tons'  burden. f  The  East  Indian  mer- 
chants were  the  first  to  increase  the  size.  In  1609,  en- 
couraged by  their  charter,  they  built  the  Trade's  In- 
crease, of  eleven  hundred  tons'  burden,  the  largest  mer- 
chant ship  that  had  ever  been  built  in  England.  As  it 
was  necessary  that  the  crew  of  the  ship  should  be  able 
to  beat  off  the  pirates,  she  was  fully  armed.  The  addi- 
tional ships  of  war  were  also  of  heavier  burden.     In 

*  There  were  not  only  Algerine  but  English  pirates  scouring  the 
seas.  Keutzner,  the  German,  who  wrote  in  Elizabeth's  reign,  said, 
"The  English  are  good  sailors  and  famous  pirates  (sunt  boni  nautce 
et  insignis  pyratce)."  Roberts,  in  his  "Social  History  of  the  South- 
ern Counties  "(p.  93),  observes,  " Elizabeth  had  employed  many  Eng- 
lish as  privateers  against  the  Spaniard.  After  the  war,  many  were 
loath  to  lead  an  inactive  life.  They  had  their  commissions  revoked, 
and  were  proclaimed  pirates.  The  public  looked  upon  them  as  gal- 
lant fellows  ;  the  merchants  gave  them  underhand  support ;  and  even 
the  authorities  in  maritime  towns  connived  at  the  sale  of  their  plun- 
der. In  spite  of  proclamations,  during  the  first  five  years  after  the 
accession  of  James  L,  there  were  continual  complaints.  This  lawless 
way  of  life  even  became  popular.  Many  Englishmen  furnished  them- 
selves with  good  ships  and  scoured  the  seas,  but  little  careful  whom 
they  might  plunder."  It  was  found  very  difficult  to  put  down  piracy. 
According  to  Oliver's  "History  of  the  City  of  Exeter,"  not  less  than 
"fifteen  sail  of  Turks"  held  the  English  Channel,  snapping  up  mer- 
chantmen, in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century!  The  harbors  in 
the  southwest  were  infested  by  Moslem  pirates,  who  attacked  and  plun- 
dered the  ships,  and  carried  their  crews  into  captivity.  The  loss, 
even  to  an  inland  port  like  Exeter,  in  ships,  money,  and  men,  was 
enormous. 

t  "Naval  Tracts,"  p.  294. 

2 


26  Phineas  Pett. 


the  same  year  the  Prince,  of  fourteen  hundred  tons' 
burden,  was  launched;  she  carried  sixty -four  cannon, 
and  was  superior  to  any  ship  of  the  kind  hitherto  seen 
in  England. 

And  now  we  arrive  at  the  subject  of  this  memoir. 
The  Petts  were  the  principal  ship-builders  of  the  time. 
They  had  long  been  known  upon  the  Thames,  and  had 
held  posts  in  the  royal  dockyards  since  the  reign  of 
Henry  VIII.  They  were  gallant  sailors,  too;  one  of 
them,  as  already  mentioned,  having  made  an  adven- 
turous voyage  to  the  Arctic  Ocean  in  his  little  bark, 
the  George,  of  only  forty  tons'  burden.  Phineas  Pett 
was  the  first  of  the  great  ship-builders.  His  father, 
Peter  Pett,  was  one  of  the  queen's  master  shipwrights. 
Besides  being  a  ship-builder,  he  was  also  a  poet,  being 
the  author  of  a  poetical  piece  entitled,  "  Time's  Jour- 
ney to  Seek  his  Daughter  Truth,"*  by  no  means  a  des- 
picable performance.  Indeed,  poetry  is  by  no  means 
incompatible  with  ship-building — the  late  chief  con- 
structor of  the  navy  being,  perhaps,  as  proud  of  his 
poetry  as  of  his  ships.  Pett's  poem  was  dedicated  to 
the  lord  high  admiral,  Howard,  Earl  of  Nottingham, 
and  may  possibly  have  been  the  reason  of  the  singular 
interest  which  he  afterwards  took  in  Phineas  Pett,  the 
poet  shipwright's  son. 

Phineas  Pett  was  the  second  son  of  his  father.  He 
was  born  at  Deptford,  or  "  Deptford  Strond,"  as  the 
place  used  to  be  called,  on  the  1st  of  November,  1570. 
At  nine  years  old  he  was  sent  to  the  free-school  at 
Rochester,  and  remained  there  for  four  years.  Not 
profiting  much  by  his  education  there,  his  father  re- 
moved him  to  a  private  school  at  Greenwich,  kept  by 
a  Mr.  Adams.  Here  he  made  so  much  progress  that, 
in  three  years'  time,  he  was  ready  for  Cambridge.     He 

*  This  poem  is  now  very  rare ;  it  is  not  in  the  British  Museum. 


Education  of  Pett.  27 

was  accordingly  sent  to  that  university  at  Shrovetide, 
1586,  and  was  entered  at  Emmanuel  College,  under 
charge  of  Mr.  Charles  Chadwick,  the  president.  His 
father  allowed  him  £20  per  annum,  besides  books,  ap- 
parel, and  other  necessaries. 

Phineas  remained  at  Cambridge  for  three  years.  He 
was  obliged  to  quit  the  university  by  the  death  of  his 
"reverend,  ever-loving  father,"  whose  loss,  he  says, 
"proved  afterwards  my  utter  undoing  almost,  had  not 
God  been  more  merciful  to  me."  His  mother  married 
again,  "  a  most  wicked  husband,"  says  Pett,  in  his  au- 
tobiography,* "  one  Mr.  Thomas  Nunn,  a  minister," 
but  of  what  denomination  he  does  not  state.  His 
mother's  imprudence  wholly  deprived  him  of  his  main- 
tenance, and  having  no  hopes  of  preferment  from  his 
friends,  he  necessarily  abandoned  his  university  career, 
"presently  after  Christmas,  1590." 

Early  in  the  following  year  he  was  persuaded  by  his 
mother  to  apprentice  himself  to  Mr.  Richard  Chapman, 
of  Deptford  Strond,  one  of  the  queen's  master  ship- 
wrights, whom  his  late  father  had  "bred  up  from  a 
child  to  that  profession."  He  was  allowed  £2  6s.  Sd. 
per  annum,  with  which  he  had  to  provide  himself  with 
tools  and  apparel.  Pett  spent  two  years  in  this  man's 
service  to  very  little  purpose;  Chapman  then  died,  and 
the  apprentice  was  dismissed.     Pett  applied  to  his  el- 

*  There  are  three  copies  extant  of  the  autobiography,  all  of  which 
are  in  the  British  Museum.  In  the  main,  they  differ  but  slightly  from 
each  other.  Not  one  of  them  has  been  published  in  extenso.  In  De- 
cember, 1795,  and  in  February,  1796,  Dr.  Samuel  Denne  communi- 
cated to  the  Society  of  Antiquaries  particulars  of  two  of  these  MSS., 
and  subsequently  published  copious  extracts  from  them  in  their  trans- 
actions (Archce.  xii.  anno  1796),  in  a  very  irregular  and  careless  man- 
ner. It  is  probable  that  Dr.  Denne  never  saw  the  original  manuscript, 
but  only  a  garbled  copy  of  it.  The  above  narrative  has  been  taken 
from  the  original,  and  collated  with  the  documents  in  the  state-paper 
office. 


28  Phineas  Pett. 


der  brother,  Joseph,  who  would  not  help  him,  although 
he  had  succeeded  to  his  father's  post  in  the  royal 
dockyard.  He  was  accordingly  "  constrained  to  ship 
himself  to  sea  upon  a  desperate  voyage  in  a  man-of- 
war."  He  accepted  the  humble  place  of  carpenter's 
mate  on  board  the  galleon  Constance,  of  London.  Pett's 
younger  brother,  Peter,  then  living  at  Wapping,  gave 
him  lodging,  meat,  and  drink  until  the  ship  was  ready 
to  sail.  But  he  had  no  money  to  buy  clothes.  Fortu- 
nately one  William  King,  a  yeoman  in  Essex,  taking 
pity  upon  the  unfortunate  young  man,  lent  him  £3  for 
that  purpose,  which  Pett  afterwards  repaid. 

The  Constance  was  of  only  two  hundred  tons'  burden. 
She  set  sail  for  the  South  a  few  days  before  Christmas, 
1592.  There  is  no  doubt  that  she  was  bound  upon  a 
piratical  adventure.  Piracy  was  not  thought  dishon- 
orable in  those  days.  Four  years  had  elapsed  since 
the  Armada  had  approached  the  English  coast,  and 
now  the  English  and  Dutch  ships  were  scouring  the 
seas  in  search  of  Spanish  galleons.  Whoever  had  the 
means  of  furnishing  a  ship,  and  could  find  a  plucky 
captain  to  command  her,  sent  her  out  as  a  privateer. 
Even  the  companies  of  the  City  of  London  clubbed 
their  means  together  for  the  purpose  of  sending  out 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh  to  capture  Spanish  ships,  and  af- 
terwards to  divide  the  plunder,  as  any  one  may  see  on 
referring  to  the  documents  of  the  London  Corpora- 
tion.* 


*  See,  for  instance,  the  "Index  to  the  Journals  of  Records  of  the 
Corporation  of  the  City  of  London  "  (No.  2,  p.  34G,  1590-1694),  under 
the  head  of  "Sir  Walter  Raleigh."  There  is  a  document  dated  the 
15th  November,  1593,  in  the  35th  of  Elizabeth,  which  runs  as  fol- 
lows :  "  Committee  appointed  on  behalf  of  such  of  the  City  Compa- 
nies as  have  ventured  in  the  late  Fleet  set  forward  by  Sir  Walter  Ra- 
leigh, Knight,  and  others,  to  join  with  such  honorable  personages  as 
the  Queen  hath  appointed,  to  take  a  perfect  view  of  all  such  goods, 


Piracy  and  Privateering.  29 

The  adventure  in  which  Pett  was  concerned  did  not 
prove  very  fortunate.  He  was  absent  for  about  twenty 
months  on  the  coasts  of  Spain  and  Barbary,  and  in  the 
Levant,  enduring  much  misery  for  want  of  victuals 
and  apparel,  and  "  without  taking  any  purchase  of  any 
value."  The  Constance  returned  to  the  Irish  coast 
"extreme  poorly."  The  vessel  entered  Cork  harbor, 
and  then  Pett,  thoroughly  disgusted  with  privateering 
life,  took  leave  of  both  ship  and  voyage.  With  much 
difficulty  he  made  his  way  across  the  country  to  Wa- 
terford,  from  whence  he  took  ship  for  London.  He 
arrived  there  three  days  before  Christmas,  1594,  in  a 
beggarly  condition,  and  made  his  way  to  his  brother 
Peter's  house,  at  Wapping,  who  again  kindly  enter- 
tained him.  The  elder  brother,  Joseph,  received  him 
more  coldly,  though  he  lent  him  forty  shillings  to  find 
himself  in  clothes.  At  that  time  the  fleet  was  ordered 
to  be  got  ready  for  the  last  expedition  of  Drake  and 
Hawkins  to  the  West  Indies.  The  Defiance  was  sent 
into  Woolwich  Dock  to  be  sheathed,  and  as  Joseph 
Pett  was  in  charge  of  the  job,  he  allowed  his  brother 
to  be  employed  as  a  carpenter. 

In  the  following  year  Phineas  succeeded  in  attract- 

prizes,  spices,  jewels,  pearls,  treasures,  etc.,  lately  taken  in  the  Car- 
rack,  and  to  make  sale  and  division  (Jor.  23,  p.  156).  Suit  to  be 
made  to  the  Queen  and  Privy  Council  for  the  buying  of  the  goods, 
etc.,  lately  taken  at  sea  in  the  Carrack ;  a  committee  appointed  to 
take  order  accordingly ;  the  benefit  or  loss  arising  thereon  to  be  di- 
vided and  borne  between  the  Chamber  [of  the  Corporation  of  the  City] 
and  the  Companies  that  adventured  (157).  The  several  Companies 
that  adventured  at  sea  with  Sir  Walter  Ealeigh  to  accept  so  much  of  the 
goods  taken  in  the  Carrack  to  the  value  of  £12,000,  according  to  the 
Queen's  offer.  A  committee  appointed  to  acquaint  the  Lords  of  the 
Council  with  the  City's  acceptance  thereof  (167).  Committee  for  sale 
of  the  Carrack  goods  appointed  (174).  Bonds  for  sale  to  be  sealed 
(196).  .  .  .  Committee  to  audit  accounts  of  a  former  adventure 
(224  b.)." 


30  Phineas  Pett. 


ing  the  notice  of  Matthew  Baker,  who  was  com- 
missioned to  rebuild  her  majesty's  Triumph.  Baker 
employed  Pett  as  an  ordinary  workman,  but  he  had 
scarcely  begun  the  job  before  Baker  was  ordered  to 
proceed  with  the  building  of  a  great  new  ship  at  Dept- 
ford,  called  the  Repulse.  Phineas  wished  to  follow 
the  progress  of  the  Triumph,  but  finding  his  brother 
Joseph  unwilling  to  retain  him  in  his  employment,  he 
followed  Baker  to  Deptford,  and  continued  to  work  at 
the  Repulse  until  she  was  finished,  launched,  and  set 
sail  on  her  voyage,  at  the  end  of  April,  1596.  This 
was  the  leading  ship  of  the  squadron  which  set  sail  for 
Cadiz,  under  the  command  of  the  Earl  of  Essex  and 
the  Lord  Admiral  Howard,  and  which  did  so  much 
damage  to  the  forts  and  shipping  of  Philip  II.  of 
Spain. 

During  the  winter  months,  while  the  work  was  in 
progress,  Pett  spent  the  leisure  of  his  evenings  in  per- 
fecting himself  in  learning,  especially  in  drawing,  ci- 
phering, and  mathematics,  for  the  purpose,  as  he  says, 
of  attaining  the  knowledge  of  his  profession.  His 
master,  Mr.  Baker,  gave  him  every  encouragement, 
and  from  his  assistance,  he  adds,  "I  must  acknowledge 
I  received  my  greatest  lights."  The  lord  admiral  was 
often  present  at  Baker's  house.  Pett  was  importuned 
to  set  sail  with  the  ship  when  finished,  but  he  preferred 
remaining  at  home.  The  principal  reason,  no  doubt, 
that  restrained  him  at  this  moment  from  seeking  the 
patronage  of  the  great,  was  the  care  of  his  two  sisters,* 
who,  having  fled  from  the  house  of  their  barbarous 
stepfather,  could  find  no  refuge  but  in  that  of  their 

*  There  were  three  sisters  in  all,  the  eldest  of  whom  (Abigail)  fell 
a  victim  to  the  cruelty  of  Nunn,  who  struck  her  across  the  head  with 
the  fire-tongs,  from  the  effects  of  which  she  died  in  three  days.  Nunn 
was  tried,  and  convicted  of  manslaughter.  He  died  shortly  after. 
Mrs.  Nunn,  Phinens's  mother,  was  already  dead. 


PetC s  Promotion.  31 

brother  Phineas.  Joseph  refused  to  receive  them,  and 
Peter,  of  "Wapping,  was  perhaps  less  able  than  willing 
to  do  so. 

In  April,  1597,  Pett  had  the  advantage  of  being  in- 
troduced to  Howard,  Earl  of  Nottingham,  then  Lord 
High  Admiral  of  England.  This,  he  says,  was  the  first 
beginning  of  his  rising.  Two  years  later,  Howard  rec- 
ommended him  for  employment  in  purveying  plank 
and  timber  in  Norfolk  and  Suffolk  for  ship-building 
purposes.  Pett  accomplished  his  business  satisfacto- 
rily, though  he  had  some  malicious  enemies  to  contend 
against.  In  his  leisure  he  began  to  prepare  models  of 
ships,  which  he  rigged  and  finished  complete.  He  also 
proceeded  with  the  study  of  mathematics.  The  be- 
ginning of  the  year  1600  found  Pett  once  more  out  of 
employment,  and  during  his  enforced  idleness,  which 
continued  for  six  months,  he  seriously  contemplated 
abandoning  his  profession  and  attempting  to  gain  "  an 
honest  and  convenient  maintenance  "  by  joining  a  friend 
in  purchasing  a  caravel  (a  small  vessel),  and  navigating 
it  himself. 

He  was,  however,  prevented  from  undertaking  this 
enterprise  by  a  message  which  he  received  from  the 
court,  then  stationed  at  Greenwich.  The  lord  high 
admiral  desired  to  see  him,  and,  after  many  civil  com- 
pliments, he  offered  him  the  post  of  keeper  of  the 
plankyard  at  Chatham.  Pett  was  only  too  glad  to 
accej^t  this  offer,  though  the  salary  was  small.  He 
shipped  his  furniture  on  board  a  hoy  of  Rainham,  and 
accompanied  it  down  the  Thames  to  the  junction  with 
the  Medway.  There  he  escaped  a  great  danger — one 
of  the  sea-perils  of  the  time.  The  mouths  of  naviga- 
ble rivers  were  still  infested  with  pirates,  and  as  the 
hoy  containing  Pett  approached  the  Kore,  about  three 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  while  still  dark,  she  came 
upon  a  Dunkirk  picaroon  full  of  men.     Fortunately 


32  Phineas  Pett. 


the  pirate  was  at  anchor;  she  weighed  and  gave  chase, 
and,  had  not  the  hoy  set  full  sail,  and  been  impelled 
up  the  Swale  by  a  fresh  wTind,  Pett  would  have  been 
taken  prisoner,  with  all  his  furniture.* 

Arrived  at  Chatham,  Pett  met  his  brother  Joseph, 
became  reconciled  to  him,  and  ever  after  they  lived 
together  as  loving  brethren.  At  his  brother's  sugges- 
tion, Pett  took  a  lease  of  the  Manor  House,  and  settled 
there  with  his  sisters.  He  was  now  in  the  direct  way 
to  preferment.  Early  in  the  following  year  (March, 
1601)  he  succeeded  to  the  place  of  assistant  to  the 
principal  master  shipwright  at  Chatham,  and  undertook 
the  repairs  of  her  majesty's  ship  The  Lion's  "Whelp, 
and  in  the  next  year  he  new-built  the  3Ioon,  enlarg- 
ing her  both  in  length  and  breadth. 

At  the  accession  of  James  I.,  in  1603,  Pett  was  com- 
manded by  the  lord  high  admiral  with  all  possible 
speed  to  build  a  little  vessel  for  the  young  Prince  Hen- 
ry, eldest  son  of  his  majesty.  It  was  to  be  a  sort  of 
copy  of  the  Ark  Royal,  which  was  the  flagship  of  the 
lord  high  admiral  when  he  defeated  the  Spanish  Ar- 
mada. Pett  proceeded  to  accomplish  the  order  with 
all  despatch.  The  little  ship  was  in  length  by  the  keel 
twenty- eight  feet,  in  breadth  twelve  feet,  and  very  curi- 
ously garnished  within  and  without  with  painting  and 
carving.  After  working  by  torch  and  candle  light, 
night  and  day,  the  ship  wras  launched,  and  set  sail  for 
the  Thames,  w7ith  the  noise  of  drums,  trumpets,  and 
cannon,  at  the  beginning  of  March,  1604.  After  pass- 
ing through  a  great  storm  at  the  Nore,  the  vessel 

*  It  would  seem,  from  a  paper  hereafter  to  be  more  particularly  re- 
ferred to,  that  the  government  encouraged  the  owners  of  ships  and 
others  to  clear  the  seas  of  these  pirates,  agreeing  to  pay  them  for  their 
labors.  In  1622  Pett  fitted  out  an  expedition  against  these  pests  of 
navigation,  but  experienced  some  difficulty  in  getting  his  expenses 
repaid. 


The  Resistance.  33 


reached  the  Tower,  where  the  king  and  the  young 
prince  inspected  her  with  delight.  She  was  christened 
Disdain  by  the  lord  high  admiral,  and  Pett  was  ap- 
pointed captain  of  the  ship. 

After  his  return  to  Chatham,  Pett,  at  his  own  charge, 
built  a  small  ship  at  Gillingham,  of  three  hundred  tons, 
which  he  launched  in  the  same  year,  and  named  the 
Resistance.  The  ship  was  scarcely  out  of  hand  when 
Pett  was  ordered  to  Woolwich,  to  prepare  the  Hear 
and  other  vessels  for  conveying  his  patron,  the  lord 
high  admiral,  as  an  ambassador  extraordinary  to  Spain 
for  the  purpose  of  concluding  peace,  after  a  strife  of 
more  than  forty  years.  The  Resistance  was  hired  by 
the  government  as  a  transport,  and  Pett  was  put  in 
command.  He  seems  to  have  been  married  at  this 
time,  as  he  mentions  in  his  memoir  that  he  parted 
with  his  wife  and  children  at  Chatham  on  the  24th  of 
March,  1605,  and  that  he  sailed  from  Queenborough 
on  Easter  Sunday. 

During  the  voyage  to  Lisbon  the  Resistance  became 
separated  from  the  ambassador's  squadron,  and  took 
refuge  in  Corunna.  She  then  set  sail  for  Lisbon,  which 
she  reached  on  the  24th  of  April;  and  afterwards  for 
St.  Lucar,  on  the  Guadalquivir,  near  Seville,  which  she 
reached  on  the  11th  of  May  following.  After  revisit- 
ing Corunna,  "  according  to  instructions,"  on  the  home- 
ward voyage,  Pett  directed  his  course  for  England,  and 
reached  Rye  on  the  26th  of  June,  "amidst  much  rain, 
thunder,  and  lightning."  In  the  course  of  the  same 
year  his  brother  Joseph  died,  and  Phineas  succeeded 
to  his  post  as  master  ship-builder  at  Chatham.  He  was 
permitted,  in  conjunction  with  one  Henry  Farvey  and 
three  others,  to  receive  the  usual  reward  of  5s.  per  ton 
for  building  five  new  merchant  ships,*  most  probably 

*  See  grant  S.  P.  O.,  29th  May,  1605. 


34  Phineas  Pett. 


for  East  Indian  commerce,  now  assuming  large  dimen- 
sions. He  was  despatched  by  the  government  to  Bear- 
wood, in  Hampshire,  to  make  a  selection  of  timber  from 
the  estate  of  the  Earl  of  Worcester  for  the  use  of  the 
navy,  and  on  presenting  his  report  three  thousand  tons 
were  purchased.  What  with  his  building  of  ships,  his 
attendance  on  the  lord  admiral  to  Spain,  and  his  selec- 
tion of  timber  for  the  government,  his  hands  seem  to 
have  been  kept  very  full  during  the  whole  of  1605. 

In  July,  1606,  Pett  received  private  instructions  from 
the  lord  high  admiral  to  have  all  the  king's  ships  "  put 
into  comely  readiness  "  for  the  reception  of  the  King  of 
Denmark,  who  was  expected  on  a  royal  visit.  "  Where- 
in," he  says,  "  I  strove  extraordinarily  to  express  my 
service  for  the  honor  of  the  kingdom  ;  but  by  reason 
the  time  limited  was  short,  and  the  business  great,  we 
labored  night  and  day  to  effect  it,  which  accordingly 
was  done,  to  the  great  honor  of  our  sovereign  king 
and  master,  and  no  less  admiration  of  all  strangers  that 
were  eye-witnesses  to  the  same."  The  reception  took 
place  on  the  10th  of  August,  1606. 

Shortly  after  the  departure  of  his  Majesty  of  Den- 
mark four  of  the  royal  ships — the  Ark,  Victory,  Gold- 
en Lion,  and  Swiftsure — were  ordered  to  be  dry-docked; 
the  two  last  mentioned  at  Deptford,  under  charge  of 
Matthew  Baker,  and  the  two  former  at  Woolwich,  un- 
der that  of  Pett.  For  greater  convenience,  Pett  re- 
moved his  family  to  Woolwich.  After  being  elected 
and  sworn  master  of  the  Company  of  Shipwrights,  he 
refers  in  his  manuscript,  for  the  first  time,  to  his  mag- 
nificent and  original  design  of  the  Prince  Royal.* 

"  After  settling  at  Woolwich,"  he  says,  "  I  began  a 
curious  model  for  the  prince  my  master,  most  part 

*  An  engraving  of  this  remarkable  ship  is  given  in  Charnock's  "  His- 
tory of  Marine  Architecture,"  vol.  ii.  p.  199. 


Design  of  the  "Prince  lioyalP  35 

whereof  I  wrought  with  my  own  hands."  After  fin- 
ishing the  model  he  exhibited  it  to  the  lord  high 
admiral,  and,  after  receiving  his  approval  and  com- 
mands, he  presented  it  to  the  young  prince  at  Rich- 
mond. "  His  majesty  (who  was  present)  was  exceed- 
ingly delighted  with  the  sight  of  the  model,  and  passed 
some  time  in  questioning  the  divers  material  things 
concerning  it,  and  demanded  whether  I  could  build 
the  great  ship  in  all  parts  like  the  same;  for  I  will, 
says  his  majesty,  compare  them  together  when  she 
shall  be  finished.  Then  the  lord  admiral  commanded 
me  to  tell  his  majesty  the  story  of  the  Three  Ravens* 
I  had  seen  at  Lisbon,  in  St.  Vincent's  Church,  which  I 
did  as  well  as  I  could,  with  my  best  expressions,  though 
somewhat  daunted  at  first  at  his  majesty's  presence, 
having  never  before  spoken  before  any  king." 

Before,  however,  he  could  accomplish  his  purpose, 
Pett  was  overtaken  by  misfortunes.  His  enemies,  very 
likely  seeing  with  spite  the  favor  with  which  he  had 
been  received  by  men  in  high  position,  stirred  up  an 
agitation  against  him.  There  may,  and  there  very 
probably  was,  a  great  deal  of  jobbery  going  on  in  the 
dockyards.  It  was  difficult,  under  the  system  which 
prevailed,  to  have  any  proper  check  upon  the  expendi- 

*  The  story  of  the  Three,  or  rather  Two,  Ravens  is  as  follows : 
The  body  of  St.  Vincent  was  originally  deposited  at  the  cape  which 
still  bears  his  name  on  the  Portuguese  coast ;  and  his  tomb,  says  the 
legend,  was  zealously  guarded  by  a  couple  of  ravens.  When  it  was 
determined,  in  the  twelfth  century,  to  transport  the  relics  of  the  saint 
to  the  cathedral  of  Lisbon,  the  two  ravens  accompanied  the  ship  which 
contained  them,  one  at  its  stem  and  the  other  at  its  stern.  The  relics 
were  deposited  in  the  Chapel  of  St.  Vincent,  within  the  cathedral,  and 
there  the  two  ravens  have  ever  since  remained.  The  monks  contin- 
ued to  support  two  such  birds  in  the  cloisters,  and  till  very  lately  the 
officials  gravely  informed  the  visitor  to  the  cathedral  that  they  were 
the  identical  ravens  which  accompanied  the  saint's  relics  to  their  city. 
The  birds  figure  in  the  arms  of  Lisbon, 


36  Phineas  Pett. 


ture  for  the  repair  and  construction  of  ships.  At  all 
events,  a  commission  was  appointed  for  the  purpose  of 
inquiring  into  the  abuses  and  misdemeanors  of  those 
in  office;  and  Pett's  enemies  took  care  that  his  past 
proceedings  should  be  thoroughly  overhauled,  togeth- 
er with  those  of  Sir  Robert  Mansell,  then  Treasurer  to 
the  Navy,  Sir  John  Trevor,  Surveyor,  Sir  Henry  Pal- 
mer, Controller,  Sir  Thomas  Bluther,  Victualler,  and 
many  others. 

While  the  commission  was  still  sitting  and  holding 
what  Pett  calls  their  "malicious  proceedings,"  he  was 
able  to  lay  the  keel  of  his  new  great  ship  upon  the 
stocks  in  the  dock  at  Woolwich  on  the  20th  of  Octo- 
ber, 1608.  He  had  a  clear  conscience,  for  his  hands 
were  clean.  He  went  on  vigorously  with  his  work, 
though  he  knew  that  the  inquisition  against  him  was 
at  its  full  height.  His  enemies  reported  that  he  was 
"  no  artist,  and  that  he  wTas  altogether  insufficient  to 
perform  such  a  service"  as  that  of  building  his  great 
ship.  Nevertheless,  he  persevered,  believing  in  the 
goodness  of  his  cause.  Eventually  he  was  enabled  to 
turn  the  tables  upon  his  accusers,  and  to  completely 
justify  himself  in  all  his  transactions  with  the  king, 
the  lord  admiral,  and  the  public  officers,  who  were 
privy  to  all  his  transactions.  Indeed,  the  result  of  the 
inquiry  was  not  only  to  cause  a  great  trouble  and  ex- 
pense to  all  the  persons  accused,  but,  as  Pett  says  in 
his  memoir,  "  the  government  itself  of  that  royal  office 
was  so  shaken  and  disjoined  as  brought  almost  ruin 
upon  the  whole  navy,  and  a  far  greater  charge  to  his 
majesty  in  his  yearly  expense  than  ever  was  known 
before."  * 

In  the  midst  of  his  troubles  and  anxieties  Pett  was 


*  The  evidence  taken  by  the  commissioners  is  embodied  in  a  volu- 
minous report.     S.  P.  O.,  Dom.  James  I.,  vol.  xli.  1608. 


Examination  of  Pett's  Enemies.  37 

unexpectedly  cheered  with  the  presence  of  his  "  mas- 
ter," Prince  Henry,  who  specially  travelled  out  of  his 
way  from  Essex  to  visit  him  at  Woolwich,  to  see  with 
his  own  eyes  what  progress  he  was  making  with  the 
great  ship.  After  viewing  the  dry  dock,  which  had 
been  constructed  by  Pett,  and  was  one  of  the  first,  if 
not  the  very  first  in  England,  his  highness  partook  of 
a  banquet  which  the  ship-builder  had  hastily  prepared 
for  him  in  his  temporary  lodgings. 

One  of  the  circumstances  which  troubled  Pett  so 
much  at  this  time  was  the  strenuous  opposition  of  the 
other  ship  -  builders  to  his  plans  of  the  great  ship. 
There  never  had  been  such  a  frightful  innovation. 
The  model  was  all  wrong.  The  lines  were  detestable. 
The  man  who  planned  the  whole  thing  was  a  fool,  a 
"  cozener  "  of  the  king,  and  the  ship,  suppose  it  to  be 
made,  was  "  unfit  for  any  other  use  but  a  dung-boat !" 
This  attack  upon  his  professional  character  weighed 
very  heavily  upon  his  mind. 

He  determined  to  put  his  case  in  a  straightforward 
manner  before  the  lord  high  admiral.  He  set  down 
in  writing,  in  the  briefest  manner,  everything  that  he 
had  done,  and  the  plots  that  had  been  hatched  against 
him;  and  beseeched  his  lordship,  for  the  honor  of  the 
state  and  the  reputation  of  his  office,  to  cause  the 
entire  matter  to  be  thoroughly  investigated  "by  judi- 
cious and  impartial  persons."  After  a  conference  with 
Pett,  and  an  interview  with  his  majesty,  the  lord  high 
admiral  was  authorized  by  the  latter  to  invite  the 
Earls  of  Worcester  and  Suffolk  to  attend  with  him  at 
Woolwich,  and  bring  all  the  accusers  of  Pett's  design 
of  the  great  ship  before  them  for  the  jmrpose  of  ex- 
amination, and  to  report  to  him  as  to  the  actual  state 
of  affairs. 

Meanwhile  Pett's  enemies  had  been  equally  busy. 
They  obtained  a  private  warrant  from   the  Earl   of 


38  Phineas  Pett. 


Northampton*  to  survey  the  work ;  "  which  being 
done,"  says  Pett,  "  upon  return  of  the  insufficiency  of 
the  same  under  their  hands,  and  confirmation  by  oath, 
it  was  resolved  among  them  I  should  be  turned  out, 
and  forever  disgraced." 

But  the  lords  appointed  by  the  king  now  interfered 
between  Pett  and  his  adversaries.  They  first  inspect- 
ed the  ship,  and  made  a  diligent  survey  of  the  form 
and  manner  of  the  work  and  the  goodness  of  the  mate- 
rials, and  then  called  all  the  accusers  before  them  to 
hear  their  allegations.  They  were  examined  separate- 
ly. First,  Baker,  the  master  ship-builder,  was  called. 
He  objected  to  the  size  of  the  ship,  to  the  length, 
breadth,  depth,  draught  of  water,  height  of  jack,  rake 
before  and  aft,  breadth  of  the  floor,  scantling  of  the 
timber,  and  so  on.  Then  another  of  the  objectors  was 
called,  and  his  evidence  was  so  clearly  in  contradiction 
to  that  which  had  already  been  given,  that  either  one 
or  both  must  be  wrong.  The  principal  objector,  Cap- 
tain Waymouth,  next  gave  his  evidence;  but  he  was 
able  to  say  nothing  to  any  purpose,  except  giving  their 
lordships  "  a  long,  tedious  discourse  of  proportions, 
measures,  lines,  and  an  infinite  rabble  of  idle  and  un- 
profitable speeches,  clean  from  the  matter." 

The  result  was  that  their  lordships  reported  favor- 
ably of  the  design  of  the  ship,  and  the  progress  which 
had  already  been  made.  The  Earl  of  Northampton 
interposed  his  influence;  and  the  king  himself,  accom- 
panied by  the  young  prince,  went  down  to  Woolwich, 


*  The  Earl  of  Northampton,  privy  seal,  was  Lord  Warden  of  the 
Cinque  Ports ;  hence  his  moving  in  the  matter.  Pett  says  he  was 
his  "most  implacable  enemy."  It  is  probable  that  the  earl  was  jeal- 
ous of  Pett,  because  he  had  received  his  commission  to  build  the 
great  ship  directly  from  the  sovereign,  without  the  intervention  of  his 
lordship, 


The  "Prince  Royal"  Launched.  39 

and  made  a  personal  examination.*  A  great  many  wit- 
nesses were  again  examined,  twenty-four  on  one  side 
and  twenty-seven  on  the  other.  The  king  then  care- 
fully examined  the  ship  himself — "the  planks,  the  tree- 
nails, the  workmanship,  and  the  cross-grained  timber." 
"The  cross-grain,"  he  concluded,  "was  in  the  men  and 
not  in  the  timber."  After  all  the  measurements  had 
been  made  and  found  correct,  "his  majesty,"  says  Pett, 
"  with  a  loud  voice  commanded  the  measurers  to  de- 
clare publicly  the  very  truth;  which  when  they  had 
delivered  clearly  on  our  side,  all  the  whole  multitude 
heaved  up  their  hats,  and  gave  a  great  and  loud  shout 
and  acclamation.  And  then  the  prince,  his  highness, 
called  with  a  high  voice  in  these  words:  ' Where  be 
now  these  perjured  fellows  that  dare  thus  abuse  his 
majesty  with  these  false  accusations?  Do  they  not 
worthily  deserve  hanging  ?" 

Thus  Pett  triumphed  over  all  his  enemies,  and  was 
allowed  to  finish  the  great  ship  in  his  own  way.  By 
the  middle  of  September,  1610,  the  vessel  was  ready 
to  be  "strucken  down  upon  her  ways;"  and  a  dozen 
of  the  choice  master-carpenters  of  his  majesty's  navy 
came  from  Chatham  to  assist  in  launching  her.  The 
ship  was  decorated,  gilded,  draped,  and  garlanded;  and 
on  the  24th  the  king,  the  queen,  and  the  royal  family 
came  from  the  palace  at  Theobald's  to  witness  the  great 
sight.  Unfortunately  the  day  proved  very  rough,  and 
it  was  little  better  than  a  neap  tide.  The  ship  start- 
ed very  well,  but  the  wind  "  overblew  the  tide  ;"  she 

*  This  royal  investigation  took  place  at  Woolwich  on  the  8th  of 
May,  1609.  The  state -paper  office  contains  a  report  of  the  same 
date,  most  probably  the  one  presented  to  the  king,  signed  by  six  ship- 
builders and  Captain  Waymouth,  and  countersigned  by  Northampton 
and  four  others.  The  report  is  headed,  "The  Prince  Royal:  imper- 
fections found  upon  view  of  the  new  work  begun  at  Woolwich."  It 
would  occupy  too  much  space  to  give  the  results  here. 


40  Phineas  Pett. 


caught  in  the  dock-gates,  and  settled  hard  upon  the 
ground,  so  that  there  was  no  possibility  of  launching 
her  that  tide. 

This  was  a  great  disappointment.  The  king  retired 
to  the  palace  at  Greenwich,  though  the  prince  lingered 
behind.  When  he  left,  he  promised  to  return  by  mid- 
night, after  which  it  was  proposed  to  make  another 
effort  to  set  the  ship  afloat.  When  the  time  arrived, 
the  prince  again  made  his  appearance,  and  joined  the 
lord  high  admiral,  and  the  principal  naval  officials.  It 
was  bright  moonshine.  After  midnight  the  rain  began 
to  fall,  and  the  wind  to  blow  from  the  southwest.  But 
about  two  o'clock,  an  hour  before  high  water,  the  word 
was  given  to  set  all  taut,  and  the  ship  went  away  with- 
out any  straining  of  screws  and  tackles,  till  she  came 
clear  afloat  into  the  midst  of  the  Thames.  The  prince 
was  aboard,  and,  amid  the  blast  of  trumpets  and  ex- 
pressions of  joy,  he  performed  the  ceremony  of  drink- 
ing from  the  great  standing  cup,  and  throwing  the  rest 
of  the  wine  towards  the  half-deck,  and  christening  the 
ship  by  the  name  of  the  Prince  Royal* 

The  dimensions  of  the  ship  may  be  briefly  described. 
Her  keel  was  one  hundred  and  fourteen  feet  long,  and 
her  cross-beam  forty-four  feet.  She  was  of  fourteen 
hundred  tons'  burden,  and  carried  sixty-four  pieces  of 
great  ordnance.  She  was  the  largest  ship  that  had  yet 
been  constructed  in  England. 

The  Prince  Royal  was,  at  the  time  she  was  built, 
considered  one  of  the  most  wonderful  efforts  of  human 
genius.  Mr.  Charnock,  in  his  "  Treatise  on  Marine 
Architecture,"  speaks  of  her  as  abounding  in  striking 

*  Alas,  for  the  uncertainties  of  life !  This  noble  young  prince — 
the  hope  of  England  and  the  joy  of  his  parents,  from  whom  such 
great  things  were  anticipated — for  he  was  graceful,  frank,  brave,  ac- 
tive, and  a  lover  of  the  sea — was  seized  with,  a  serious  illness,  and 
died  in  his  eighteenth  year,  on  the  16th  of  November,  1612. 


Modifications  in  Ship-building.  41 

peculiarities.  Previous  to  the  construction  of  this  ship 
vessels  were  built  in  the  style  of  the  Venetian  galley, 
which,  although  well  adapted  for  the  quiet  Mediterra- 
nean, were  not  suited  for  the  stormy  northern  ocean. 
The  fighting  ships,  also,  of  the  time  of  Henry  VIII.  and 
Elizabeth  were  too  full  of  "  top-hamper  "  for  modern 
navigation.  "They  were  oppressed  by  high  forecastles 
and  poops.  Pett  struck  out  entirely  new  ideas  in  the 
build  and  lines  of  his  new  ship;  and  the  course  which 
he  adopted  had  its  effect  upon  all  future  marine  struct- 
ures. The  ship  was  more  handy,  more  wieldy,  and 
more  convenient.  She  was  unquestionably  the  first 
effort  of  English  ingenuity  in  the  direction  of  manage- 
ableness  and  simplicity.  "  The  vessel  in  question," 
says  Charnock,  "  may  be  considered  the  parent  of  the 
class  of  shipping  which  continues  in  practice  even  to 
the  present  moment. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  pursue  in  detail  the  fur- 
ther history  of  Phineas  Pett.  We  may  briefly  men- 
tion the  principal  points.  In  1612  the  Prince  Royal 
was  appointed  to  convey  the  Princess  Elizabeth  and 
her  husband,  the  palsgrave,  to  the  Continent.  Pett 
was  on  board  the  ship,  and  found  that  "  it  wrought  ex- 
ceedingly well,  and  was  so  yare  of  conduct  that  a  foot 
of  helm  would  steer  her."  While  at  Flushing,  "such  a 
multitude  of  people — men,  women,  and  children — came 
from  all  places  in  Holland  to  see  the  ship,  that  we 
could  scarce  have  room  to  go  up  and  down  till  very 
night." 

About  the  27th  of  March,  1616,  Pett  bargained  with 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh  to  build  a  vessel  of  five  hundred 
tons,*  and  received  £500  from  him  on  account.  The 
king,  through  the  interposition  of  the  lord  admiral,  al- 


*  Pett  says  she  was  to  be  five  hundred  tons,  but  when  he  turned 
her  out  her  burden  was  rated  at  seven  hundred  tons. 


42  Phineas  Pett. 


lowed  Pett  to  lay  her  keel  on  the  galley  dock  at  Wool- 
wich. In  the  same  year  he  was  commissioned  by  the 
Lord  Zouche,  now  Lord  Warden  of  the  Cinque  Ports, 
to  construct  a  pinnace  of  forty  tons,  in  respect  of 
which  Pett  remarks  :  "  Towards  the  whole  of  the  hull 
of  the  pinnace,  and  all  her  rigging,  I  received  only 
£100  from  the  Lord  Zouche,  the  rest  Sir  Henry  Main- 
waring  (half-brother  to  Raleigh)  cunningly  received  on 
my  behalf,  without  my  knowledge,  which  I  never  got 
from  him  but  by  piecemeal,  so  that  by  the  bargain  I 
was  loser  £100  at  least. 

Pett  fared  much  worse  at  the  hands  of  Raleigh  him- 
self. His  great  ship,  the  Destiny,  was  finished  and 
launched  in  December,  1616.  "I  delivered  her  to 
him,"  says  Pett,  "on  float,  in  good  order  and  fashion; 
by  which  business  I  lost  £700,  and  could  never  get  any 
recompense  at  all  for  it;  Sir  Walter  going  to  sea  and 
leaving  me  unsatisfied."  *  Nor  was  this  the  only  loss 
that  Pett  met  with  this  year.  The  king,  he  states, 
"  bestowed  upon  me,  for  the  supply  of  my  present  re- 
lief, the  making  of  a  knight-baronet,"  which  authority 
Pett  passed  to  a  recusant,  one  Francis  Ratcliffe,  for 
£700;  but  that  worthy  defrauded  him,  so  that  he  lost 
£30  by  the  bargain. 

Next  year,  Pett  was  despatched  by  the  government 
to  the  New  Forest  in  Hampshire,  "  where,"  he  says, 
"  one  Sir  Giles  Mompesson  f  had  made  a  vast  waste  in 

*  This  conduct  of  Raleigh's  was  the  more  inexcusable,  as  there  is 
in  the  state -paper  office  a  warrant  dated  16th  of  November,  1617, 
for  the  payment  to  Pett  of  seven  hundred  crowns  "for  building  the 
new  ship,  the  Destiny,  of  London,  of  seven  hundred  tons'  burden." 
The  least  he  could  have  done  was  to  have  handed  over  to  the  builder 
his  royal  and  usual  reward.  In  the  above  warrant,  by  the  way,  the 
title  "our  well-beloved  subject,"  the  ordinary  prefix  to  such  grants, 
has  either  been  left  blank  or  erased  (it  is  difficult  to  say  which),  but 
was  very  significant  of  the  slippery  footing  of  Raleigh  at  court. 

f  Sir  Giles  Overreach,  in  the  play  of  "A  New  Way  to  Pay  Old 


Expedition  against  Pirates.  43 

the  spoil  of  his  majesty's  timber,  to  redress  which  I 
was  employed  thither,  to  make  choice  out  of  the  num- 
ber of  trees  he  had  felled  of  all  such  timber  as  was 
useful  for  shipping,  in  which  business  I  spent  a  great 
deal  of  time,  and  brought  myself  into  a  great  deal  of 
trouble."  About  this  period,  poor  Pett's  wife  and  two 
of  his  children  lay  for  some  time  at  death's  door.  Then 
more  inquiries  took  place  into  the  abuses  of  the  dock- 
yards, in  which  it  was  sought  to  implicate  Pett.  Dur- 
ing the  next  three  years  (1618-20)  he  worked  under 
the  immediate  orders  of  the  commissioners  in  the  New 
Dock  in  Chatham. 

In  1620  Pett's  friend,  Sir  Robert  Mansell,  was  ap- 
pointed general  of  the  fleet  destined  to  chastise  the 
Algerine  pirates,  who  still  continued  their  depredations 
on  the  shipping  in  the  Channel,  and  the  king  there- 
upon commissioned  Pett  to  build  with  all  despatch  two 
pinnaces,  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  and  eighty  tons 
respectively.  "  I  was  myself,"  he  says,  "  to  serve  as 
captain  in  the  voyage  " — being  glad,  no  doubt,  to  es- 
cape from  his  tormentors.  The  two  pinnaces  were 
built  at  Ratcliffe,  and  were  launched  on  the  16th  and 
18th  of  October,  1620.  On  the  30th,  Pett  sailed  with 
the  fleet,  and,  after  driving  the  pirates  out  of  the 
Channel,  he  returned  to  port  after  an  absence  of  eleven 
months. 

His  enemies  had  taken  advantage  of  his  absence 
from  England  to  get  an  order  for  the  survey  of  the 
Prince  Moyal,  his  masterpiece  ;  the  result  of  which 
was,  he  says,  that  "they  maliciously  certified  the  ship 
to  be  unserviceable,  and  not  fit  to  continue — that  what 
charges  should  be  bestowed  upon  her  would  be  lost." 
Nevertheless,  the  Prince  Royal  was  docked,  and  fitted 


Debts,"  by  Philip  Massinger.     It  was  difficult  for  the  poet,  or  any 
other  person,  to  libel  such  a  personage  as  Mompesson. 


44  Phineas  Pett. 


for  a  voyage  to  Spain.  She  was  sent  thither  with 
Charles,  Prince  of  Wales,  and  the  Duke  of  Bucking- 
ham, the  former  going  in  search  of  a  Spanish  wife. 
Pett,  the  builder  of  the  ship,  was  commanded  to  ac- 
company the  young  prince  and  the  duke. 

The  expedition  sailed  on  the  24th  of  August,  1623, 
and  returned  on  the  14th  of  October.  Pett  was  enter- 
tained on  board  the  Prince  Royal,  and  rendered  occa- 
sional services  to  the  officers  in  command,  though  noth- 
ing of  importance  occurred  during  the  voyage.  The 
Prince  of  Wales  presented  him  with  a  valuable  gold 
chain  as  a  reward  for  his  attendance.  In  1625,  Pett, 
after  rendering  many  important  services  to  the  admi- 
ralty, was  ordered  again  to  prepare  the  Prince  Royal 
for  sea.  She  was  to  bring  over  the  Prince  of  Wales's 
bride  from  France.  While  the  preparations  were  mak- 
ing for  the  voyage,  news  reached  Chatham  of  the  death 
of  King  James.  Pett  was  afterwards  commanded  to  go 
forward  with  the  work  of  preparing  the  Prince  Royal, 
as  well  as  the  whole  fleet,  which  was  intended  to  escort 
the  French  princess,  or  rather  the  queen,  to  England. 
The  expedition  took  place  in  May,  and  the  young 
queen  landed  at  Dover  on  the  12th  of  that  month. 

Pett  continued  to  be  employed  in  building  and  re- 
pairing ships,  as  well  as  in  preparing  new  designs, 
which  he  submitted  to  the  king  and  the  commissioners 
of  the  navy.  In  1626  he  was  appointed  a  joint  com- 
missioner, with  the  lord  high  admiral,  the  Lord  Treas- 
urer Marlborough,  and  others,  "  to  inquire  into  certain 
alleged  abuses  of  the  navy,  and  to  view  the  state  there- 
of, and  also  the  stores  thereof,"  clearly  showing  that 
he  was  regaining  his  old  position.  He  was  also  en- 
gaged in  determining  the  best  mode  of  measuring  the 
tonnage  of  ships.*     Four  years  later  he  was  again  ap- 

*  Pett's  method  is  described  in  a  paper  contained  in  the  S.  P.  O., 


The  " Sovereign  of  the  Seas"  45 

pointed  a  commissioner  for  making  "  a  general  survey 
of  the  whole  navy  at  Chatham."  For  this  and  his 
other  services  the  king  promoted  Pett  to  be  a  princi- 
pal officer  of  the  navy,  with  a  fee  of  £200  per  annum. 
His  patent  was  sealed  on  the  16th  of  January,  1631. 
In  the  same  year  the  king  visited  Woolwich  to  witness 
the  launching  of  the  Vanguard,  which  Pett  had  built; 
and  his  majesty  honored  the  shipwright  by  partici- 
pating in  a  banquet  at  his  lodgings. 

From  this  period  to  the  year  1637,  Pett  records 
nothing  of  particular  importance  in  his  autobiography. 
-He  was  chiefly  occupied  in  aiding  his  son  Peter — who 
was  rapidly  increasing  his  fame  as  a  shipwright — in 
repairing  and  building  first-class  ships  of  war.  As 
Pett  had,  on  an  early  occasion  in  his  life,  prepared  a 
miniature  ship  for  Prince  Henry,  eldest  son  of  James  I., 
he  now  proceeded  to  prepare  a  similar  model  for  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  the  king's  eldest  son,  afterwards 
Charles  II.  This  model  was  presented  to  the  prince 
at  St.  James's,  "  who  entertained  it  with  great  joy,  be- 
ing purposely  made  to  disport  himself  withal."  On 
the  next  visit  of  his  majesty  to  Woolwich,  he  insj^ected 
the  progress  made  with  the  Leopard,  a  sloop-of-war 
built  by  Peter  Pett.  While  in  the  hold  of  the  vessel, 
the  king  called  Phineas  to  one  side,  and  told  him  of 
his  resolution  to  have  a  great  new  ship  built,  and  that 
Phineas  must  be  the  builder.  This  great  new  ship  was 
the  Sovereign  of  the  Seas,  afterwards  built  by  Phineas 
and  Peter  Pett.  Some  say  that  the  model  was  pre- 
pared by  the  latter;  but  Phineas  says  that  it  was  pre- 
pared by  himself,  and  finished  by  the  29th  of  October, 
1634.  As  a  compensation  for  his  services,  his  majesty 
renewed  his  pension  of  £40  (which  had  been  previous- 


dated  21st  of  October,  1626.     The  Trinity  Corporation  adopted  his 
method. 


46  Phineas  Pett. 


ly  stopped),  with  orders  for  all  the  arrears  due  upon  it 
to  be  paid. 

To  provide  the  necessary  timber  for  the  new  ship, 
Phineas  and  his  son  went  down  into  the  north  to  sur- 
vey the  forests.  They  went  first  by  water  to  Whitby; 
from  thence  they  proceeded  on  horseback  to  Gisbor- 
ough  and  baited;  then  to  Stockton,  where  they  found 
but  poor  entertainment,  though  they  lodged  with  the 
mayor,  whose  house  "was  only  a  mean  thatched  cot- 
tage !"  Middlesborough  and  the  great  iron  district  of 
the  north  had  not  yet  come  into  existence.  Newcas- 
tle, already  of  some  importance,  was  the  principal 
scene  of  their  labors.  The  timber  for  the  new  ship 
was  found  in  Chapley  Wood  and  Brancepeth  Park. 
The  gentry  did  all  they  could  to  facilitate  the  object 
of  Pett.  On  his  journey  homewards  (July,  1635),  he 
took  Cambridge  on  his  way,  where,  says  he,  "  I  lodged 
at  the  Falcon,  and  visited  Emmanuel  College,  where  I 
had  been  a  scholar  in  my  youth." 

The  Sovereign  of  the  Seas  was  launched  on  the  12th 
of  October,  1637,  having  been  about  two  years  in  build- 
ing. Evelyn,  in  his  diary,  says  of  the  ship  (19th  July, 
1641)  :  "  We  rode  to  Rochester  and  Chatham  to  see  the 
Soveraigne,  a  monstrous  vessel  so  called,  being,  for 
burthen,  defence,  and  ornament,  the  richest  that  ever 
spread  cloth  before  the  wind.  She  carried  one  hundred 
brass  cannon,  and  was  sixteen  hundred  tons,  a  rare 
sailer,  the  work  of  the  famous  Phineas  Pett."  Rear- 
admiral  Sir  William  Symonds  says  that  she  was  after- 
wards cut  down,  and  was  a  safe  and  fast  ship.* 

The  Sovereign  continued  for  nearly  sixty  years  to 
be  the  finest  ship  in  the  English  service.  Though  fre- 
quently engaged  in  the  most  injurious  occupations,  she 

*  "  Memoirs  of  the  Life  and  Services  of  Kear-admiral  Sir  William 
Symonds,  Kt.,"p.  91. 


Sir  Peter  Pett  47 


continued  fit  for  any  services  which  the  exigencies  of 
the  state  might  require.  She  fought  all  through  the 
wars  of  the  commonwealth;  she  was  the  leading  ship 
of  Admiral  Blake,  and  was  in  all  the  great  naval  en- 
gagements with  France  and  Holland.  The  Dutch  gave 
her  the  name  of  Tlie  Golden  Demi.  In  the  last  fight 
between  the  English  and  French,  she  encountered  the 
Wonder  of  the  World,  and  so  warmly  plied  the  French 
admiral  that  she  forced  him  out  of  his  three-decked 
wooden  castle,  and,  chasing  the  Royal  Sun  before  her, 
forced  her  to  fly  for  shelter  among  the  rocks,  where 
she  became  a  prey  to  lesser  vessels,  and  was  reduced 
to  ashes.  At  last,  in  the  reign  of  William  III.,  the 
Sovereign  became  leaky  and  defective  with  age ;  she 
was  laid  up  at  Chatham,  and,  being  set  on  fire  by  neg- 
ligence or  accident,  she  burned  to  the  water's  edge. 

To  return  to  the  history  of  Phineas  Pett.  As  years 
approached,  he  retired  from  office,  and  his  "loving 
son,"  as  he  always  affectionately  designates  Peter,  suc- 
ceeded him  as  principal  shipwright,  Charles  I.  confer- 
ring upon  him  the  honor  of  knighthood.  Phineas 
lived  for  ten  years  after  the  Sovereign  of  the  Seas  was 
launched.  In  the  burial  register  of  the  parish  of 
Chatham  it  is  recorded,  "  Phineas  Pett,  Esqe.  and 
Capt.,  was  buried  21st  August,  1647."* 


*  Pett's  dwelling-house  at  Eochester  is  thus  described  in  an  anony- 
mous history  of  that  town  (p.  337,  ed.  1817):  "Beyond  the  victual- 
ling office,  on  the  same  side  of  the  High  Street,  at  Rochester,  is  an 
old  mansion,  now  occupied  by  a  Mr.  Morson,  an  attorney,  which  for- 
merly belonged  to  the  Petts,  the  celebrated  ship-builders.  The  chim- 
ney-piece in  the  principal  room  is  of  wood,  curiously  carved,  the  up- 
per part  being  divided  into  compartments  by  caryatydes.  The  cen- 
tral compartment  contains  the  family  arms,  viz.,  Or,  on  a  fesse,  gu., 
between  three  pellets,  a  lion  passant  gardant  of  the  field.  On  the 
back  of  the  grate  is  a  cast  of  Neptune,  standing  erect  in  his  car,  with 
Triton  blowing  conches,  etc.,  and  the  date  1G50." 


48  Phineas  Pelt. 


Sir  Peter  Pett  was  almost  as  distinguished  as  his  fa- 
ther. He  was  the  builder  of  the  first  frigate,  the  Con- 
stant Warwick.  Sir  William  Symonds  says  of  this  ves- 
sel :  "  She  was  an  incomparable  sailer,  remarkable  for 
her  sharpness  and  the  fineness  of  her  lines;  and  many 
were  built  like  her."  Pett  "  introduced  convex  lines 
on  the  immersed  part  of  the  hull,  with  the  studding 
and  sprit  sails;  and,  in  short,  he  appears  to  have  fully 
deserved  his  character  of  being  the  best  ship  architect 
of  his  time."*  Sir  Peter  Pett's  monument  in  Deptford 
Old  Church  fully  records  his  services  to  England's 
naval  power. 

The  Petts  are  said  to  have  been  connected  with  ship- 
building in  the  Thames  for  not  less  than  two  hundred 
years.  Fuller,  in  his  "Worthies  of  England,"  says  of 
them,  "  I  am  credibly  informed  that  that  mystery  of 
shipwrights  for  some  descents  hath  been  preserved 
faithfully  in  families,  of  whom  the  Petts  about  Chat- 
ham are  of  singular  regard.  Good  success  have  they 
with  their  skill,  and  carefully  keep  so  precious  a  pearl, 
lest  otherwise  amongst  many  friends  some  foes  attain 
unto  it." 

The  late  Peter  Rolt,  member  for  Greenwich,  took 
pride  in  being  descended  from  the  Petts;  but,  so  far 
as  we  know,  the  name  itself  has  died  out.  In  1801, 
when  Charnock's  "History  of  Marine  Architecture" 
was  published,  Mr.  Pett,  of  Tovil,  near  Maidstone,  was 
the  sole  representative  of  the  family. 

*  Symonds,  ' '  Memoirs  of  Life  and  Services,"  p.  94. 


CHAPTER  II. 

FRANCIS  PETTIT   SMITH, 

PRACTICAL   INTRODUCER    OF    THE    SCREW    PROPELLER. 

"  The  spirit  of  Paley's  maxim,  that '  he  alone  discovers  who  proves,' 
is  applicable  to  the  history  of  inventions  and  discoveries ;  for  certainly 
he  alone  invents  to  any  good  purpose  who  satisfies  the  world  that  the 
means  he  may  have  devised  have  been  found  competent  to  the  end 
proposed." — Dr.  Samuel  Brown. 

"  Too  often  the  real  worker  and  discoverer  remains  unknown,  and 
an  invention,  beautiful  but  useless  in  one  age  or  country,  can  be  ap- 
plied only  in  a  remote  generation,  or  in  a  distant  land.  Mankind 
hangs  together  from  generation  to  generation  ;  easy  labor  is  but  in- 
herited skill ;  great  discoveries  and  inventions  are  worked  up  to  by  the 
efforts  of  myriads  ere  the  goal  is  reached." — H.  M.  Htndman. 

Though  a  long  period  elapsed  between  the  times  of 
Phineas  Pett  and  "Screw"  Smith,  comparatively  little 
improvement  had  been  effected  in  the  art  of  ship- 
building. The  Sovereign  of  the  Seas  had  not  been  ex- 
celled by  any  ship  of  war  built  down  to  the  end  of  the 
last  century.*  At  a  comparatively  recent  date,  ships 
continued  to  be  built  of  timber  and  plank,  and  impelled 
by  sails  and  oars,  as  they  had  been  for  thousands  of 
years  before. 

But  this  century  has  witnessed  many  marvellous 
changes.     A  new  material  of  construction  has  been  in- 

*  In  the  "Transactions  of  the  Institution  of  Naval  Architects  for 
1860,"  it  was  pointed  out  that  the  general  dimensions  and  form  of  bot- 
tom of  this  ship  were  very  similar  to  the  most  famous  line-of-battle 
ships  built  down  to  the  end  of  the  last  century,  some  of  which  were 
then  in  existence. 

3 


50  Francis  Pettit  Smith. 

•troduced  into  ship-building,  with  entirely  new  methods  • 
of  propulsion.  Old  things  have  been  displaced  by  new, 
and  the  magnitude  of  the  results  has  been  extraordi- 
nary. *The  most  important  changes  have  been  in  the 
use  of  iron  and  steel  instead  of  wood,  and  in  the  em- 
ployment of  the  steam-engine  in  impelling  ships  by 
the  paddle  or  the  screw. 

So  long  as  timber  was  used  for  the  construction  of 
ships,  the  number  of  vessels  built  annually,  especially 
in  so  small  an  island  as  Britain,  must  necessarily  have 
continued  very  limited.  Indeed,  so  little  had  the  cul- 
tivation of  oak  in  Great  Britain  been  attended  to,  that 
all  the  royal  forests  could  not  have  supplied  sufficient  . 
timber  to  build  one  line- of -battle  ship  annually;  while 
for  the  mercantile  marine,  the  world  had  to  be  ran- 
sacked for  wood,  often  of  a  very  inferior  quality. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  seventy-eight  gun  ship,  the 
ffindostaiiy  launched  a  few  years  ago.  It  would  have 
required  four  thousand  two  hundred  loads  of  timber 
to  build  a  ship  of  that  description,  and  the  growth  of 
the  timber  would  have  occupied  seventy  acres  of 
ground  during  eighty  years.*  It  would  have  needed 
something  like  eight  hundred  thousand  acres  of  land 
on  which  to  grow  the  timber  for  the  ships  annually 
built  in  this  country  for  commercial  purposes.  And 
timber  ships  are  by  no  means  lasting.  The  average 
durability  of  ships  of  war  employed  in  active  service 
has  been  calculated  to  be  about  thirteen  years,  even 
when  built  of  British  oak.    - 

Indeed,  years  ago,  the  building  of  shipping  in  this 
country  was  much  hindered  by  the  want  of  materials. 
The  trade  was  being  rapidly  transferred  to  Canada  and 


*  According  to  the  calculation  of  Mr.  Chatfield,  of  her  majesty's 
dockyard  at  Plymouth,  in  a  paper  read  before  the  British  Association 
in  1841  on  ship-building. 


Iron  Employed  in  Ship-building.  51 

the  United  States.  Some  years  since  an  American 
captain  said  to  an  Englishman,  Captain  Hall,  when  in 
China,  "  You  will  soon  have  to  come  to  our  country  for 
your  ships:  your  little  island  cannot  grow  wood  enough 
for  a  large  marine."  "  Oh  !"  said  the  Englishman,  "  we 
can  build  ships  of  iron  !"  "  Iron,"  replied  the  Ameri- 
can, in  surprise  ;  "  why,  iron  sinks  ;  only  wood  can 
float!"  "Well!  you  will  find  I  am  right."  The 
prophecy  was  correct.  The  Englishman  in  question 
has  now  a  fleet  of  splendid  iron  steamers  at  sea. 

The  use  of  iron  in  ship-building  had  small  begin- 
nings, like  everything  else.  The  established  prejudice 
— that  iron  must  necessarily  sink  in  water — long  con- 
tinued to  prevail  against  its  employment.  The  first 
iron  vessel  was  built  and  launched  about  a  hundred 
years  since  by  John  Wilkinson,  of  Bradley  Forge,  in 
Staffordshire.  In  a  letter  of  his,  dated  the  14th  of 
July,  1787,  the  original  of  which  we  have  seen,  he 
writes  :  "Yesterday  week  my  iron  boat  was  launched. 
It  answers  all  my  expectations,  and  has  convinced  the 
unbelievers,  who  were  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  in 
one  thousand.  It  will  be  only  a  nine-days'  wonder, 
and  afterwards  a  Columbus's  egg.,y  It  was,  however, 
more  than  a  nine-days'  wonder  ;  for  wood  long  con- 
tinued to  be  thought  the  only  material  capable  of 
floating. 

Although  Wilkinson's  iron  vessels  continued  to  ply 
upon  the  Severn,  more  than  twenty  years  elapsed  be- 
fore another  ship-builder  ventured  to  follow  his  exam- 
ple. But,  in  1810,  Onions  &  Son,  of  Brosely,  built 
several  iron  vessels,  also  for  use  upon  the  Severn. 
Then,  in  1815,  Mr.  Jervons,  of  Liverpool,  built  a  small 
iron  boat  for  use  on  the  Mersey.  Six  years  later,  in 
1821,  Mr.  Aaron  Manby  designed  an  iron  steam  vessel, 
which  was  built  at  the  Horsley  Company's  Works,  in 
Staffordshire.     She  sailed  from  London  to  Havre  a  few 


52  Francis  Pettit  Smith. 

years  later,  under  the  command  of  Captain  (afterwards 
Sir  Charles)  Napier,  R.  N".  She  was  freighted  with 
a  cargo  of  linseed  and  iron  castings,  and  went  up  the 
Seine  to  Paris.  It  was  some  time,  however,  before 
iron  came  into  general  use.  Ten  years  later,  in  1832, 
Maudslay  &  Field  built  four  iron  vessels  for  the  East 
India  Company.  In  the  course  of  about  twenty  years 
the  use  of  iron  became  general,  not  only  for  ships  of 
war,  but  for  merchant  ships  plying  to  all  parts  of  the 
world. 

When  ships  began  to  be  built  of  iron,  it  was  found 
that  they  could  be  increased  without  limit,  so  long  as 
coal,  iron,  machinery,  and  strong  men  full  of  skill  and 
industry  were  procurable.  The  trade  in  ship-building 
returned  to  Britain,  where  iron  ships  are  now  made  and 
exported  in  large  numbers ;  the  mercantile  marine  of 
this  country  exceeding  in  amount  and  tonnage  that  of 
all  the  other  countries  of  the  world  put  together.  The 
"wooden  walls"*  of  England  exist  no  more,  for  iron 
has  superseded  wood.  Instead  of  constructing  vessels 
from  the  forest,  we  are  now  digging  new  navies  out  of 
the  bowels  of  the  earth,  and  our  "  walls,"  instead  of 
wood,  are  now  of  iron  and  steel. 

The  attempt  to  propel  ships  by  other  means  than 
sails  and  oars  went  on  from  century  to  century,  and 
did  not  succeed  until  almost  within  our  own  time.  It 
is  said  that  the  Roman  army  under  Claudius  Codex 
was  transported  into  Sicily  in  boats  propelled  by 
wheels  moved  by  oxen.     Galleys  propelled  by  wheels 

*  The  phrase  "wooden  walls"  is  derived  from  the  Greek.  When 
the  city  of  Athens  was  once  in  danger  of  being  attacked  and  destroyed, 
the  Oracle  of  Delphi  was  consulted.  The  inhabitants  were  told  that 
there  was  no  safety  for  them  but  in  their  "wooden  walls" — that  is, 
their  shipping.  As  they  had  then  a  powerful  fleet,  the  oracle  gave 
them  rational  advice,  which  had  the  effect  of  saving  the  Athenian 
people. 


The  First  Steam-vessels.  53 

in  paddles  were  afterwards  attempted.  The  Harleian 
MS.  contains  an  Italian  book  of  sketches,  attributed  to 
the  fifteenth  century,  in  which  there  appears  a  drawing 
of  a  paddle-boat,  evidently  intended  to  be  worked  by 
men.  Paddle-boats,  worked  by  horse-power,  were  also 
tried.  Blasco  Garay  made  a  supreme  effort  at  Barce- 
lona in  1543.  His  vessel  was  propelled  by  a  paddle- 
wheel  on  each  side,  worked  by  forty  men.  But  nothing 
came  of  the  experiment. 

Many  other  efforts  of  a  similar  kind  were  made — by 
Savery  among  others* — until  we  come  down  to  Patrick 
Miller,  of  Dalswinton,  who,  in  1787,  invented  a  double- 
hulled  boat,  which  he  caused  to  be  propelled  on  the 
Firth  of  Forth  by  men  working  a  capstan  which  drove 
the  paddles  on  each  side.  The  men  soon  became  ex- 
hausted, and  on  Miller  mentioning  the  subject  to  Will- 
iam Symington,  who  was  then  exhibiting  his  road  loco- 
motive in  Edinburgh,  Symington  at  once  said,  "  Why 
don't  you  employ  steam-power  ?" 

There  were  many  speculations  in  early  times  as  to 
the  application  of  steam-power  for  propelling  vessels 
through  the  water.  David  Ramsay  in  1618,  Dr.  Grant 
in  1632,  the  Marquis  of  Worcester  in  1661,  were  among 
the  first  in  England  to  publish  their  views  upon  the 
subject.  But  it  is  probable  that  Denis  Papin,  the  ban- 
ished Huguenot  physician,  for  some  time  curator  of 
the  Royal  Society,  was  the  first  who  made  a  model 
steamboat.  During  his  residence  in  England  he  was 
elected  professor  of  mathematics  in  the  University  of 
Marburg.  It  was  while  at  that  city  that  he  construct- 
ed, in  1707,  a  small  steam-engine,  which  he  fitted  in  a 
boat — tine  petite  machine  d\m  vaissean  d  roues — and 
despatched  it  to  England  for  the  purpose   of  being 

*  An  account  of  these  is  given  by  Bennet  Woodcroft  in  his  "  Sketch 
of  the  Origin  and  Progress  of  Steam  Navigation,"  London,  1848. 


54  Francis  Petlit  Smith, 

tried  upon  the  Thames.  The  little  vessel  never  reached 
England.  At  Mfinden,  the  boatmen  on  the  River  We- 
ser,  thinking  that,  if  successful,  it  would  destroy  their 
occupation,  seized  the  boat,  with  its  machine,  and  bar- 
barously destroyed  it.  Papin  did  not  repeat  his  exper- 
iment, and  died  a  few  years  later. 

The  next  inventor  was  Jonathan  Hulls,  of  Campden, 
in  Gloucestershire.  He  patented  a  steamboat  in  1736, 
and  worked  the  paddle-wheel  placed  at  the  stern  of  the 
vessel  by  means  of  a  Newcomen  engine.  He  tried  his 
boat  on  the  River  Avon,  at  Evesham,  but  it  did  not 
succeed,  and  the  engine  was  taken  on  shore  again.  A 
local  poet  commemorated  his  failure  in  the  following 
lines,  which  were  remembered  long  after  his  steamboat 
experiment  had  been  forgotten: 

"  Jonathan  Hull, 

With  his  paper  skull, 
Tried  hard  to  make  a  machine 
That  should  go  against  wind  and  tide ; 

But  he,  like  an  ass, 

Couldn't  hring  it  to  pass, 
So  at  last  was  ashamed  to  be  seen." 

Nothing  of  importance  was  done  in  the  direction  of 
a  steam-engine  able  to  drive  paddles  until  the  inven- 
tion by  James  Watt,  in  1769,  of  his  double-acting  en- 
gine—  the  first  step  by  which  steam  was  rendered 
capable  of  being  successfully  used  to  impel  a  vessel. 
But  Watt  was  indifferent  to  taking  up  the  subject  of 
steam  navigation,  as  well  as  of  steam  locomotion.  He 
refused  many  invitations  to  make  steam-engines  for 
the  propulsion  of  ships,  preferring  to  confine  himself 
to  his  "regular  established  trade  and  manufacture," 
that  of  making  condensing  steam-engines,  which  had 
become  of  great  importance  towards  the  close  of  his 
life. 

Two  records  exist  of  paddle-wheel  steamboats  hav- 


The  First  Practical  Steamboats.  55 

ing  been  early  tried  in  France  —  one  by  the  Comte 
cl'Auxiron  and  M.  Perrier  in  1774,  the  other  by  the 
Comte  de  Jouffroy  in  1783 — but  the  notices  of  their 
experiments  are  very  vague,  and  rest  on  somewhat 
doubtful  authority. 

The  idea,  however,  had  been  born,  and  was  not 
allowed  to  die.  When  Mr.  Miller,  of  Dalswinton,  had 
revived  the  notion  of  propelling  vessels  by  means  of 
paddle-wheels,  worked,  as  Savery  had  before  worked 
them,  by  means  of  a  capstan  placed  in  the  centre  of 
the  vessel,  and  when  he  complained  to  Symington  of 
the  fatigue  caused  to  the  men  by  working  the  capstan, 
and  Symington  had  suggested  the  use  of  steam,  Mr. 
Miller  was  impressed  by  the  idea,  and  proceeded  to  or- 
der a  steam-engine  for  the  purpose  of  trying  the  ex- 
periment. The  boat  was  built  at  Edinburgh,  and  re- 
moved to  Dalswinton  Lake.  It  was  there  fitted  with 
Symington's  steam-engine,  and  first  tried  with  success 
on  the  14th  of  October,  1788,  as  has  been  related  at 
length  in  Mr.  Nasmyth's  "Autobiography."  The  ex- 
periment was  repeated  with  even  greater  success  in  the 
Charlotte  Dundas  in  1801,  which  was  used  to  tow  ves- 
sels along  the  Forth  and  Clyde  Canal,  and  to  bring 
ships  up  the  Firth  of  Forth  to  the  canal  entrance  at 
Grangemouth. 

The  progress  of  steam  navigation  was  nevertheless 
very  slow.  Symington's  experiments  were  not  renewed. 
The  Charlotte  Dundas  was  withdrawn  from  use,  be- 
cause of  the  supposed  injury  to  the  banks  of  the  canal, 
caused  by  the  swell  from  the  wheel.  The  steamboat 
was  laid  up  in  a  creek  at  Bainsford,  where  it  went  to 
ruin,  and  the  inventor  himself  died  in  poverty.  Among 
those  who  inspected  the  vessel  while  at  work  were 
Fulton,  the  American  artist,  and  Andrew  Bell,  the 
Glasgow  engineer.  The  former  had  already  occupied 
himself  with  model  steamboats,  both  at  Paris  and  in 


56  ,       Francis  Pettit  Smith. 

London,  and  in  1805  he  obtained  from  Boulton  & 
Watt,  of  Birmingham,  the  steam-engine  required  for 
propelling  his  paddle  steamboat  on  the  Hudson.  The 
Clermont  was  first  started  in  August,  1807,  and  at- 
tained a  speed  of  nearly  five  miles  an  hour.  Five  years 
later,  Andrew  Bell  constructed  and  tried  his  first  steam- 
er on  the  Clyde. 

It  was  not  until  1815  that  the  first  steamboat  was 
seen  on  the  Thames.  This  was  the  Richmond  packet, 
which  plied  between  London  and  Richmond.  The 
vessel  was  fitted  with  the  first  marine  engine  Henry 
Maudslay  ever  made.  During  the  same  year  the 
Margery,  formerly  employed  on  the  Firth  of  Forth, 
began  plying  between  Gravesend  and  London;  and 
the  Thames,  formerly  the  Argyll,  came  round  from  the 
Clyde,  encountering  rough  seas,  and  making  the  voy- 
age of  seven  hundred  and  fifty-eight  miles  in  five  days 
and  two  hours.  This  was  thought  extraordinarily  rapid 
— though  the  voyage  of  about  three  thousand  miles, 
from  Liverpool  to  New  York,  can  now  be  made  in  only 
about  two  days'  more  time. 

In  nearly  all  seagoing  vessels  the  paddle  has  now 
almost  entirely  given  place  to  the  screw.  It  was  long 
before  this  invention  was  perfected  and  brought  into 
general  use.  It  was  not  the  production  of  one  man, 
but  of  several  generations  of  mechanical  inventors.  A 
perfected  invention  does  not  burst  forth  from  the 
brain  like  a  poetic  thought  or  a  fine  resolve.  It  has  to 
be  initiated,  labored  over,  and  pursued  in  the  face 
of  disappointments,  difficulties,  and  discouragements. 
Sometimes  the  idea  is  born  in  one  generation,  followed 
out  in  the  next,  and  perhaps  perfected  in  the  third. 
In  an  age  of  progress  one  invention  merely  paves  the 
way  for  another.  What  was  the  wonder  of  yesterday 
becomes  the  common  and  unnoticed  thing  of  to-day. 

The  first  idea  of  the  screw  was  thrown  out  by  James 


Invention  of  the  Screw.  57 

Watt  more  than  a  century  ago.  Matthew  Boulton,  of 
Birmingham,  had  proposed  to  move  canal-boats  by- 
means  of  the  steam-engine  ;  and  Dr.  Small,  his  friend, 
was  in  communication  with  James  Watt,  then  residing 
at  Glasgow,  on  the  subject.  In  a  letter  from  Watt  to 
Small,  dated  the  30th  of  September,  1770,  the  former, 
after  speaking  of  the  condenser,  and  saying  that  it 
cannot  be  dispensed  with,  proceeds:  "Have  you  ever 
considered  a  spiral  oar  for  that  purpose  [propulsion  of 
canal-boats],  or  are  you  for  two  wheels?"  Watt 
added  a  pen-and-ink  drawing  of  his  spiral  oar,  greatly 
resembling  the  form  of  screw  afterwards  patented. 
Nothing,  however,  was  actually  done,  and  the  idea 
slept. 

It  was  revived  again  in  1785,  by  Joseph  Bramah, 
a  wonderful  projector  and  inventor.*  He  took  out  a 
patent,  which  included  a  rotatory  steam-engine,  and  a 
mode  of  propelling  vessels  by  means  either  of  a  pad- 
dle-wheel or  a  "  screw  propeller."  This  propeller  was 
"similar  to  the  fly  of  a  smoke-jack;"  but  there  is  no 
account  of  Bramah  having  practically  tried  this  meth- 
od of  propulsion. 

Austria,  also,  claims  the  honor  of  the  invention  of 
the  screw  steamer.  At  Trieste  and  Vienna  are  statues 
erected  to  Joseph  Ressel,  on  whose  behalf  his  country- 
men lay  claim  to  the  invention;  and  patents  for  some 
sort  of  a  screw  date  back  as  far  as  1794.  Patents  were 
also  taken  out  in  England  and  America — by  W.  Lyttle- 
ton  in  1794;  by  E.  Shorter  in  1799;  by  J.  C.  Stevens, 
of  New  Jersey,  in  1804;  by  Henry  James  in  1811 — but 
nothing  practical  was  accomplished.  Richard  Treve- 
thick,  the  anticipator  of  many  things,  also  took  out  a 
patent  in  1815,  and  in  it  he  describes  the  screw  pro- 
peller with  considerable  minuteness.    Millington,  Why- 

*  See  "Industrial  Biography,"  pp.  183-197. 
3* 


58  Francis  Pettit  Smith. 

tock,  Perkins,  Marestier,  and  Brown  followed,  with  no 
better  results. 

The  late  Dr.  Birkbeck,  in  a  letter  addressed  to  the 
Mechanics'  Register,  in  the  year  1824,  claimed  that 
John  Swan,  of  82  Mansfield  Street,  Kingsland  Road, 
London,  was  the  practical  inventor  of  the  screw  pro- 
peller. John  Swan  was  a  native  of  Coldingham,  Ber- 
wickshire. He  had  removed  to  London,  and  entered 
the  employment  of  Messrs.  Gordon,  of  Deptf  ord.  Swan 
fitted  up  a  boat  with  his  propeller,  and  tried  it  on  a 
sheet  of  water  in  the  grounds  of  Charles  Gordon,  Esq., 
of  Dulwich  Hill.  "  The  velocity  and  steadiness  of  the 
motion,"  said  Dr.  Birkbeck  in  his  letter,  "  so  far  ex- 
ceeded that  of  the  same  model  when  impelled  by  pad- 
dle-wheels driven  by  the  same  spring,  that  I  could  not 
doubt  its  superiority;  and  the  stillness  of  the  water 
was  such  as  to  give  the  vessel  the  appearance  of  being 
moved  by  some  magical  power." 

Then  comes  another  claimant — Mr.  Robert  Wilson, 
then  of  Dunbar  (not  far  from  Coldingham),  but  after- 
wards of  the  Bridgewater  Foundry,  Patricroft.  In  his 
pamphlet,  published  a  few  years  ago,  he  states  that  he 
had  long  considered  the  subject,  and  in  1827  he  made 
a  small  model,  fitted  with  "  revolving  skulls,"  which  he 
tried  on  a  sheet  of  water  in  the  presence  of  the  Hon. 
Capt.  Anthony  Maitland,  son  of  the  Earl  of  Lauder- 
dale. The  experiment  was  successful — so  successful 
that  when  the  "stern  paddles"  were  in  1828  used  at 
Leith  in  a  boat  twenty-five  feet  long,  with  two  men 
to  work  the  machinery,  the  boat  was  propelled  at  an 
average  speed  of  about  ten  miles  an  hour;  and  the 
Society  of  Arts  afterwards,  in  October,  1832,  awarded 
Mr.  Wilson  their  silver  medal  for  the  "  description, 
drawing,  and  models  of  stern  paddles  for  propelling 
steamboats,  invented  by  him."  The  subject  was,  in 
1833,  brought  by  Sir  John  Sinclair  under  the  consider- 


Smith's  Model  Screws.  59 

ation  of  the  Board  of  Admiralty;  but  the  report  of 
the  officials  (Oliver  Lang,  Abethell,  Lloyd,  and  Kings- 
ton) was  to  the  effect  that  "the  plan  proposed  (inde- 
pendent of  practical  difficulties)  is  objectionable,  as  it 
involves  a  greater  loss  of  power  than  the  common 
mode  of  applying  the  wheels  to  the  side."  And  here 
ended  the  experiment,  so  far  as  Mr.  Wilson's  "  stern 
paddles  "  were  concerned. 

It  will  be  observed,  from  what  has  been  said,  that 
the  idea  of  a  screw  propeller  is  a  very  old  one.  Watt, 
Bramah,  Trevethick,  and  many  more,  had  given  de- 
scriptions of  the  screw.  Trevethick  schemed  a  num- 
ber of  its  forms  and  applications,  which  have  been  the 
subject  of  many  subsequent  patents.  It  has  been  so 
with  many  inventions.  It  is  not  the  man  who  gives 
the  first  idea  of  a  machine  who  is  entitled  to  the  merit 
of  its  introduction,  or  the  man  who  repeats  the  idea, 
and  re-repeats  it,  but  the  man  who  is  so  deeply  im- 
pressed with  the  importance  of  the  discovery  that  he 
insists  upon  its  adoption,  will  take  no  denial,  and,  at 
the  risk  of  fame  and  fortune,  pushes  through  all  op- 
position, and  is  determined  that  what  he  thinks  he  has 
discovered  shall  not  perish  for  want  of  a  fair  trial. 
And  that  this  was  the  case  with  the  practical  intro- 
ducer of  the  screw  propeller  will  be  obvious  from  the 
following  statement. 

Francis  Pettit  Smith  was  born  at  Hythe,  in  the 
county  of  Kent,  in  1808.  His  father  was  postmaster  of 
the  town,  and  a  person  of  much  zeal  and  integrity.  The 
boy  was  sent  to  school  at  Ashf ord,  and  there  received 
a  fair  amount  of  education,  under  the  Rev.  Alexander 
Power.  Young  Smith  displayed  no  special  character- 
istic except  a  passion  for  constructing  models  of  boats. 
When  he  reached  manhood,  he  adopted  the  business  of 
a  grazing  farmer  on  Komney  Marsh.  He  afterwards 
removed  to  Hendon,  north  of  London,  where  he  had 


60  Francis  Pettit  Smith. 

plenty  of  water  on  which  to  try  his  model  boats.  The 
reservoir  of  the  Old  Welsh  Harp  was  close  at  hand — a 
place  famous  for  its  water-birds  and  wild-fowl. 

Smith  made  many  models  of  boats,  his  experiments 
extending  over  many  years.  In  1834  he  constructed  a 
boat  propelled  by  a  wooden  screw  driven  by  a  spring, 
the  performance  of  which  was  thought  extraordinary. 
Where  he  had  got  his  original  idea  is  not  known.  It 
was  floating  about  in  many  minds,  and  was  no  special 
secret.  Smith,  however,  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that 
his  method  of  propelling  steam-vessels  by  means  of  a 
screw  was  much  superior  to  paddles,  at  that  time  ex- 
clusively employed.  In  the  following  year,  1835,  he 
constructed  a  superior  model,  with  which  he  performed 
a  number  of  experiments  at  Hendon.  In  May,  1836, 
he  took  out  a  patent  for  propelling  vessels  by  means 
of  a  screw  revolving  beneath  the  water  at  the  stern. 
He  then  openly  exhibited  his  invention  at  the  Ade- 
laide Gallery,  in  London.  Sir  John  Barrow,  Secretary 
to  the  Admiralty,  inspected  the  model,  and  was  much 
impressed  by  its  action.  During  the  time  it  was  pub- 
licly exhibited,  an  offer  was  made  to  purchase  the  in- 
vention for  the  Pacha  of  Egypt,  but  the  offer  was 
declined. 

At  this  stage  of  his  operations,  Smith  was  joined  by 
Mr.  Wright,  banker,  and  Mr.  C.  A.  Caldwell,  who  had 
the  penetration  to  perceive  that  the  invention  was  one 
of  much  promise,  and  were  desirous  of  helping  its  in- 
troduction to  general  use.  They  furnished  him  with 
the  means  of  constructing  a  more  complete  model.  In 
the  autumn  of  1836  a  small  steam-vessel  of  ten  tons' 
burden  and  six-horse  power  was  built,  further  to  test 
the  advantages  of  the  invention.  This  boat  was  fitted 
with  a  wooden  screw  of  two  whole  turns.  On  the  1st 
of  November  the  vessel  was  exhibited  to  the  public  on 
the  Paddington  Canal,  as  well  as  on  the  Thames,  where 


Trial-trips  of  Screw  Propeller.  01 

she  continued  to  ply  until  the  month  of  September, 
1837. 

During  the  trips  upon  the  Thames  a  happy  accident 
occurred,  which  first  suggested  the  advantage  of  re- 
ducing the  length  of  the  screw.  The  propeller  having 
struck  upon  some  obstacle  in  the  water,  about  one  half 
of  the  length  of  the  screw  was  broken  off,  and  it  was 
found  that  the  vessel  immediately  shot  ahead  and  at- 
tained a  much  greater  speed  than  before.  In  conse- 
quence of  this  discovery,  a  new  screw  of  a  single  turn 
was  fitted  to  her,  after  which  she  was  found  to  work 
much  better. 

Having  satisfied  himself  as  to  the  eligibility  of  the 
propeller  in  smooth  water,  Mr.  Smith  then  resolved  to 
take  his  little  vessel  to  the  open  sea,  and  breast  the 
winds  and  the  waves.  Accordingly,  one  Saturday  in 
the  month  of  September,  1837,  he  proceeded  in  his 
miniature  boat  down  the  river,  from  Blackwall  to 
Gravesend.  There  he  took  a  pilot  on  board,  and  went 
on  to  Ramsgate.  Ha  passed  through  the  Downs,  and 
reached  Dover  in  safety.  A  trial  of  the  vessel's  per- 
formance was  made  there  in  the  presence  of  Mr. 
Wright,  the  banker,  and  Mr.  Peake,  the  civil  engi- 
neer. From  Dover  the  vessel  went  on  to  Folkestone 
and  Hythe,  encountering  severe  weather.  Neverthe- 
less, the  boat  behaved  admirably,  and  attained  a  speed 
of  over  seven  miles  an  hour. 

Though  the  weather  had  become  stormy  and  bois- 
terous, the  little  vessel  nevertheless  set  out  on  her  re- 
turn voyage  to  London.  Crowds  of  people  assembled 
to  witness  her  departure,  and  many  nautical  men 
watched  her  progress  with  solicitude  as  she  steamed 
through  the  waves  under  the  steep  cliffs  of  the  South 
Foreland.  The  courage  of  the  undertaking,  and  the 
unexpected  good  performance  of  the  little  vessel,  ren- 
dered her  an  object  of  great  interest  and  excitement 


62  Captain  John  Ericsson. 

as  she  "  screwed  "  her  way  along  the  coast.  The  tiny- 
vessel  reached  her  destination  in  safety.  Surely  the 
difficulty  of  a  testing  trial,  although  with  a  model 
screw,  had  at  length  been  overcome.  But,  no!  The 
paddle  still  possessed  the  ascendency,  and  a  thousand 
interests — invested  capital,  use  and  wont,  and  conserv- 
ative instincts — all  stood  in  the  way. 

Some  years  before  —  indeed,  about  the  time  that 
Smith  took  out  his  patent  —  Captain  Ericsson,  the 
Swede,  invented  a  screw  propeller.  Smith  took  out 
his  patent  in  May,  1836,  and  Ericsson  in  the  following 
July.  Ericsson  was  a  born  inventor.  While  a  boy, 
in  Sweden,  he  made  sawmills  and  pumping  -  engines, 
with  tools  invented  by  himself.  He  learned  to  draw, 
and  his  mechanical  career  began.  When  only  twelve 
years  old  he  was  appointed  a  cadet  in  the  Swedish 
corps  of  mechanical  engineers,  and  in  the  following 
year  he  was  put  in  charge  of  a  section  of  the  Gotha 
Ship  Canal,  then  under  construction.  Arrived  at  man- 
hood, Ericsson  went  over  to  England,  the  great  centre 
of  mechanical  industry.  He  was  then  twenty-three 
years  old.  He  entered  into  partnership  with  John 
Braithwaite,  and  with  him  constructed  the  Novelty, 
which  took  part  in  the  locomotive  competition  at 
Rainhill  on  the  6th  of  October,  1829.  The  prize  was 
awarded  to  Stephenson's  Rocket  on  the  14th;  but  it 
was  acknowledged  by  The  Times  of  the  day  that  the 
Novelty  was  Stephenson's  sharpest  competitor. 

Ericsson  had  a  wonderfully  inventive  brain,  a  deter- 
mined purpose,  and  a  great  capacity  for  work.  When 
a  want  was  felt,  he  was  immediately  ready  with  an 
invention.  The  records  of  the  j>atent  office  show  his 
incessant  activity.  He  invented  pumping  -  engines, 
steam-engines,  fire-engines,  and  caloric-engines.  His 
first  patent  for  a  "reciprocating  propeller  "-was  taken 
out  in  October,  1834.     To  exhibit  its  action,  he  had  a 


The  "Francis  B.  OgdmP  63 

small  boat  constructed  of  only  about  two  feet  length. 
It  was  propelled  by  means  of  a  screw,  and  was  shown 
at  work  in  a  circular  bath  in  London.  It  performed 
its  voyage  round  the  basin  at  the  rate  of  about  three 
miles  an  hour.  His  patent  for  a  "  spiral  propeller " 
was  taken  out  in  July,  1836.  This  was  the  invention 
to  exhibit  which  he  had  a  vessel  constructed  of  about 
forty  feet  length,  with  two  propellers,  each  of  five  feet 
three  inches  diameter. 

This  boat,  the  Francis  B.  Ogden,  proved  extremely 
successful.  She  moved  at  a  speed  of  about  ten  miles 
an  hour.  She  was  able  to  tow  vessels  of  one  hundred 
and  forty  tons'  burden  at  the  rate  of  seven  miles  an 
hour.  Perceiving  the  peculiar  and  admirable  fitness 
of  the  screw  propeller  for  ships  of  war,  Ericsson  invited 
the  lords  of  the  admiralty  to  take  an  excursion  in  tow 
of  his  experimental  boat.  "My  lords  "  consented;  and 
the  admiralty  barge  contained,  on  this  occasion,  Sir 
Charles  Adam,  Senior  Lord,  Sir  William  Symonds,  Sur- 
veyor, Sir  Edward  Parry,  of  polar  celebrity,  Captain 
Beaufort,  Hydrographer,  and  other  men  of  distinction. 
This  distinguished  company  embarked  at  Somerset 
House,  and  the  little  steamer,  with  her  precious  charge, 
proceeded  down  the  river  to  Limehouse  at  the  rate  of 
about  ten  miles  an  hour.  After  visiting  the  steam- 
engine  manufactory  of  Messrs.  Seawood,  where  their 
lordships'  favorite  apparatus,  the  Morgan  paddle-wheel, 
was  in  course  of  construction,  they  re-embarked,  and 
returned  in  safety  to  Somerset  House. 

The  experiment  was  perfectly  successful,  and  yet 
the  result  was  disappointment.  A  few  days  later  a 
letter  from  Captain  Beaufort  informed  Mr.  Ericsson 
that  their  lordships  had  certainly  been  "very  much 
disappointed  with  the  result  of  the  experiment."  The 
reason  for  the  disappointment  was  altogether  inexpli- 
cable to  the  inventor.     It  afterwards  appeared,  how- 


64  Captain  John  Ericsson. 

ever,  that  Sir  William  Symonds,  then  Surveyor  to  the 
Navy,  had  expressed  the  opinion  that,  "even  if  the 
propeller  had  the  power  of  propelling  a  vessel,  it  would 
be  found  altogether  useless  in  practice,  because,  the 
power  being  applied  at  the  stern,  it  would  be  absolutely 
impossible  to  make  the  vessel  steer!"  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  Francis  Pettit  Smith's  screw  vessel  went  to 
sea  in  the  course  of  the  same  year,  and  not  only  faced 
the  waves,  but  was  made  to  steer  in  a  perfectly  suc- 
cessful manner. 

Although  the  lords  of  the  admiralty  would  not  fur- 
ther encourage  the  screw  propeller  of  Ericsson,  an  offi- 
cer of  the  United  States  navy,  Captain  R.  F.  Stockton, 
was  so  satisfied  of  its  success  that,  after  making  a  sin- 
gle trip  in  the  experimental  steamboat  from  London 
Bridge  to  Greenwich,  he  ordered  the  inventor  to  build 
for  him  forthwith  two  iron  boats  for  the  United  States, 
with  steam  machinery  and  a  propeller  on  the  same  plan. 
One  of  these  vessels — the  Robert  F.  Stockton — seventy 
feet  in  length,  was  constructed  by  Laird  &  Co.,  of 
Birkenhead,  in  1838,  and  left  England  for  America  in 
April,  1839.  Captain  Stockton  so  fully  persuaded  Er- 
icsson of  his  probable  success  in  America  that  the 
inventor  at  once  abandoned  his  professional  engage- 
ments in  England,  and  set  out  for  the  United  States. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  mention  the  further  important 
works  of  this  great  engineer. 

We  may,  however,  briefly  mention  that,  in  1844, 
Ericsson  constructed  for  the  United  States  government 
the  Princeton  screw  steamer,  though  he  was  never  paid 
for  his  time,  labor,  and  expenditure.*     Undeterred  by 

*  The  story  is  told  in  Scribners  Monthly  Illustrated  Magazine  for 
April,  1879.  Ericsson's  modest  bill  was  only  $15,000  for  two  years' 
labor.  He  was  put  off  from  year  to  year,  and  at  length  the  govern- 
ment refused  to  pay  the  amount.  "The  American  government," 
says  the  editor  of  Scribner,  "will  not  appropriate  the  money  to  pay 


Ericsson's  Vessels.  65 

their  ingratitude,  Ericsson,  nevertheless,  constructed 
for  the  same  government,  when  in  the  throes  of  civil 
war,  the  famous  Monitor,  the  iron-clad  cupola  vessel, 
and  was  similarly  rewarded!  He  afterwards  invented 
the  torpedo-ship,  the  Destroyer,  the  use  of  which  has, 
fortunately,  not  yet  been  required  in  sea- warfare.  Er- 
icsson still  lives,  constantly  planning  and  scheming,  in 
his  house  in  Beach  Street,  New  York.  He  is  now  over 
eighty  years  old,  having  been  born  in  1803.  He  is 
strong  and  healthy.  How  has  he  preserved  his  vigor- 
ous constitution  ?  The  editor  of  Scribner  gives  the  an- 
swer: "  The  hall  windows  of  his  house  are  open  winter 
and  summer,  and  none  but  open  grate-fires  are  allowed. 
Insomnia  never  troubles  him,  for  he  falls  asleep  as  soon 
as  his  head  touches  the  pillow.  His  appetite  and  di- 
gestion are  always  good,  and  he  has  not  lost  a  meal  in 
ten  years.  What  an  example  to  the  men  who  imagine 
it  is  hard  work  that  is  killing  them  in  this  career  of 
unremitting  industry!" 

To  return  to  "Screw"  Smith,  after  the  successful 
trial  of  his  little  vessel  at  sea  in  the  autumn  of  1837. 
He  had  many  difficulties  yet  to  contend  with.  There 
was,  first,  the  difficulty  of  a  new  invention,  and  the 
fact  that  the  paddle-boat  had  established  itself  in 
public  estimation.  The  engineering  and  ship-building 
world  were  dead  against  him.  They  regarded  the 
project  of  propelling  a  vessel  by  means  of  a  screw  as 
visionary  and  preposterous.  There  was  also  the  official 
unwillingness  to  undertake  anything  novel,  untried, 
and  contrary  to  routine.  There  was  the  usual  shaking 
of  the  head  and  the  shrugging  of  the  shoulders,  as  if 
the  inventor  were  either  a  mere  dreamer,  or  a  projector 
eager  to  lay  his  hands  upon  the  public  purse.     The 

it,  and  that  is  all.  It  is  said  to  be  the  nature.'  of  republics  to  be  un- 
grateful ;  but  must  they  also  be  dishonest  ?" 


66  Francis  Pettit  Smith. 

surveyor  of  the  navy  was  opposed  to  the  plan,  because 
of  the  impossibility  of  making  a  vessel  steer  which 
was  impelled  from  the  stern.  "  Screw  "  Smith  bided 
his  time ;  he  continued  undaunted,  and  was  determined 
to  succeed.  He  labored  steadily  onward,  maintaining 
his  own  faith  unshaken,  and  upholding  the  faith  of  the 
gentlemen  who  had  become  associated  with  him  in  the 
prosecution  of  the  invention. 

At  the  beginning  of  1838  the  lords  of  the  admiralty 
requested  Mr.  Smith  to  allow  his  vessel  to  be  tried  un- 
der their  inspection.  Two  trials  were  accordingly 
made,  and  they  gave  so  much  satisfaction  that  the 
adoption  of  the  propeller  for  naval  purposes  was  con- 
sidered as  a  not  improbable  contingency.  Before  de- 
ciding finally  upon  its  adoption,  the  lords  of  the  admi- 
ralty were  anxious  to  see  an  experiment  made  with  a 
vessel  of  not  less  than  two  hundred  tons.  Mr.  Smith 
had  not  the  means  of  accomplishing  this  by  himself, 
but,  with  the  improved  prospects  of  the  invention,  cap- 
italists now  came  to  his  aid.  One  of  the  most  effective 
and  energetic  of  these  was  Mr.  Henry  Currie,  banker; 
and,  with  the  assistance  of  others,  the  "  Ship  Propeller 
Company "  was  formed,  and  proceeded  to  erect  the 
test-ship  proposed  by  the  admiralty. 

The  result  was  the  Archimedes,  a  wooden  vessel  of 
two  hundred  and  thirty-seven  tons'  burden.  She  was 
designed  by  Mr.  Pasco,  laid  down  by  Mr.  Wimshurst, 
in  the  spring  of  1838,  was  launched  on  the  18th  of  Oc- 
tober following,  and  made  her  first  trip  in  May,  1839. 
She  was  fitted  with  a  screw  of  one  turn,  placed  in  the 
dead  wood,  and  propelled  by  a  pair  of  engines  of  eigh- 
ty horse-power.  The  vessel  was  built  under  the  per- 
suasion that  her  performance  would  be  considered  sat- 
isfactory if  a  speed  was  attained  of  four  or  five  knots 
an  hour,  whereas  her  actual  speed  was  nine  and  a  half 
knots.     The  lords  of  the  admiraltv  were  invited  to  in- 


Success  of  the  "Archimedes."  67 

spect  the  ship.  At  the  second  trial  Sir  Edward  Parry, 
Sir  William  Symonds,  Captain  Basil  Hall,  and  other 
distinguished  persons  were  present.  The  results  were 
again  satisfactory.  The  success  of  the  Archimedes  as- 
tonished the  engineering  world.  Even  the  surveyor 
of  the  royal  navy  found  that  the  vessel  could  steer! 
The  lords  of  the  admiralty  could  no  longer  shut  their 
eyes.  But  the  invention  could  not  at  once  be  adopted. 
It  must  be  tested  by  the  best  judges.  The  vessel  was 
sent  to  Dover,  to  be  tried  with  the  best  packets  be- 
tween Dover  and  Calais.  Mr.  Lloyd,  the  chief-engi- 
neer of  the  navy,  conducted  the  investigation,  and 
reported  most  favorably  as  to  the  manner  of  her  per- 
formance. Yet  several  years  elapsed  before  the  screw 
was  introduced  into  the  service. 

In  1840  the  Archimedes  was  placed  at  the  disposal 
of  Captain  Chappell,  of  the  royal  navy,  who,  accom- 
panied by  Mr.  Smith,  visited  every  principal  port  in 
Great  Britain.  She  was  thus  seen  by  shijD-owners, 
marine  engineers,  and  ship-builders  in  every  part  of 
the  kingdom.  They  regarded  her  with  wonder  and 
admiration;  yet  the  new  mode  of  navigation  was  not 
speedily  adopted.  The  paddle-wheel  still  held  its  own. 
The  sentiment,  if  not  the  plant  and  capital,  of  the  en- 
gineering world,  were  against  the  introduction  of  the 
screw.  After  the  vessel  had  returned  from  her  cir- 
cumnavigation of  Great  Britain,  she  was  sent  to  Opor- 
to, and  performed  the  voyage  in  sixty-eight  and  a  half 
hours,  then  held  to  be  the  quickest  voyage  on  record. 
She  was  then  sent  to  the  Texel,  at  the  request  of  the 
Dutch  government.  She  went  through  the  North  Hol- 
land Canal,  visited  Amsterdam,  Antwerp,  and  other 
ports,  and  everywhere  left  the  impression  that  the 
screw  was  an  efficient  and  reliable  power  in  the  pro- 
pulsion of  vessels  at  sea. 

Ship-builders,  however,  continued  to  "fight  shy"  of 


68  Francis  Pettit  Smith. 

the  screw.  The  late  Isambard  Kingdon  Brunei  is  en- 
titled to  the  credit  of  having  first  directed  the  atten- 
tion of  ship-builders  to  this  important  invention.  He 
was  himself  a  man  of  original  views,  free  from  bias, 
and  always  ready  to  strike  out  a  fresh  path  in  engi- 
neering works.  He  was  building  a  large  new  iron 
steamer  at  Bristol,  the  Great  Britain,  for  passenger 
traffic  between  England  and  America.  He  had  in- 
tended to  construct  her  as  a  paddle-steamer,  but,  hear- 
ing of  the  success  of  the  Archimedes,  he  inspected  the 
vessel,  and  was  so  satisfied  with  the  performance  of 
the  screw  that  he  recommended  his  directors  to  adopt 
this  method  for  propelling  the  Great  Britain.  His 
advice  was  adopted,  and  the  vessel  was  altered  so  as 
to  adapt  her  for.  the  reception  of  the  screw.  The  ves- 
sel was  found  perfectly  successful,  and  on  her  first 
voyage  to  London  she  attained  the  speed  of  ten  knots 
an  hour,  though  the  wind  and  balance  of  tides  were 
against  her.  A  few  other  merchant-ships  were  built 
and  fitted  with  the  screw:  the  Princess  Royal,  at  New- 
castle, in  1840;  the  Margaret  and  Senator,  at  Hull,  and 
the  Great  Northern,  at  Londonderry,  in  1841. 

The  lords  of  the  admiralty  made  slow  progress  in 
adopting  the  screw  for  the  royal  navy.  Sir  William 
Symonds,  the  surveyor  and  principal  designer  of  her 
majesty's  ships,  was  opposed  to  all  new  projects.  He 
hated  steam-power,  and  was  utterly  opposed  to  iron 
ships.  He  speaks  of  them  in  his  journal  as  "mon- 
strous." *  So  long  as  he  remained  in  office  everything 
was  done  in  a  perfunctory  way.  A  small  vessel  named 
the  Bee  was  built  at  Chatham,  in  1841,  and  fitted  with 
both  paddles  and  the  screw,  for  the  purpose  of  experi- 
ment.    In  the  same  year  the  Battler,  the  first  screw 

*  "Memoirs  of  the  Life  and  Services  of  Rear-admiral  Sir  William 
Symonds,  Kr.,"p.  332. 


Experiments  with  the  Screw,  69 

vessel  built  for  the  navy,  was  laid  down  at  Sheerness. 
Although  of  only  eight  hundred  and  eighty-eight  tons' 
burden,  she  was  not  launched  until  the  spring  of  1843. 
She  was  then  fitted  with  the  same  kind  of  screw  as  the 
Archimedes,  that  is,  a  double-headed  screw  of  half  a 
convolution.  Experiments  went  on  for  about  three 
years,  so  as  to  determine  the  best  proportions  of  the 
screw;  and  the  proportions  then  ascertained  have  since 
been  the  principal  guide  of  engineering  practice. 

The  Rattler  was  at  length  tried  in  a  water  tourna- 
ment with  the  paddle-steamer  Alecto,  and  signally  de- 
feated her.  Francis  Pettit  Smith,  like  Gulliver,  may 
be  said  to  have  dragged  the  whole  British  fleet  after 
him.  Were  the  paddle  our  only  means  of  propulsion, 
our  whole  naval  force  would  be  reduced  to  a  nullity. 
Hostile  gunners  would  wing  a  paddle  steamer  as  effect- 
ually as  a  sportsman  wings  a  bird,  and  all  the  plating 
in  the  world  would  render  such  a  ship  a  mere  helpless 
log  on  the  water. 

The  admiralty  could  no  longer  defer  the  use  of  this 
important  invention.  Like  all  good  things,  it  made 
its  way  slowly  and  by  degrees.  The  royal  naval  au- 
thorities, who,  in  1833,  backed  the  side-paddles,  have 
since  adopted  the  screw  in  most  of  the  ships  of  war. 
In  all  long  sea-going  voyages,  also,  the  screw  is  now  the 
favorite  mode  of  propulsion.  Screw  ships  of  prodi- 
gious size  are  now  built  and  launched  in  all  the  ship- 
building ports  of  Britain,  and  are  sent  out  to  navigate 
in  every  part  of  the  world.  The  introduction  of  iron 
as  the  material  for  ship-building  has  immensely  ad- 
vanced the  interests  of  steam  navigation,  as  it  enables 
the  builders  to  construct  vessels  of  great  size  with  the 
finest  lines,  so  as  to  attain  the  highest  rates  of  speed. 

One  might  have  supposed  that  Francis  Pettit  Smith 
would  derive  some  substantial  benefit  from  his  inven- 
tion, or,  at  least,  that  the  Ship  Propeller  Company 


70  Francis  Pettit  Smith. 

would  distribute  large  dividends  among  their  propri- 
etors. Nothing  of  the  kind.  Smith  spent  his  money, 
his  labor,  and  his  ingenuity  in  conferring  a  great  pub- 
lic benefit,  without  receiving  any  adequate  reward; 
and  the  company,  instead  of  distributing  dividends, 
lost  about  £50,000  in  introducing  this  great  invention; 
after  which,  in  1856,  the  patent-right  expired.  Three 
hundred  and  twenty-seven  ships  and  vessels  of  all  class- 
es in  the  royal  navy  had  then  been  fitted  with  the 
screw  propeller,  and  a  much  larger  number  in  the 
merchant  service;  but  since  that  time  the  number  of 
screw  propellers  constructed  is  to  be  counted  by  thou- 
sands. 

In  his  comparatively  impoverished  condition  it  was 
found  necessary  to  do  something  for  the  inventor. 
The  civil  engineers,  with  Robert  Stephenson,  M.P.,  in 
the  chair,  entertained  him  at  a  dinner,  and  presented 
him  with  a  handsome  salver  and  claret-jug.  And,  that 
he  might  have  something  to  put  upon  his  salver  and 
into  his  claret-jug,  a  number  of  his  friends  and  admir- 
ers subscribed  over  £2000  as  a  testimonial.  The  gov- 
ernment appointed  him  curator  of  the  Patent  Museum 
at  South  Kensington;  the  queen  granted  him  a  pen- 
sion on  the  civil  list  for  £200  a  year,  he  was  raised 
to  the  honor  of  knighthood  in  1871,  and  three  years 
later  he  died. 

Francis  Pettit  Smith  was  not  a  great  inventor.  He 
had,  like  many  others,  invented  a  screw  propeller. 
But,  while  those  others  had  given  up  the  idea  of  pros- 
ecuting it  to  its  completion,  Smith  stuck  to  his  inven- 
tion with  determined  tenacity,  and  never  let  it  go  until 
he  had  secured  for  it  a  complete  triumph.  As  Mr. 
Stephenson  observed  at  the  engineers'  meeting:  "Mr. 
Smith  has  worked  from  a  platform  which  might  have 
been  raised  by  others,  as  Watt  had  done,  and  as  other 
great  men  had  done;  but  he  had  made  a  stride  in  ad- 


Smith  Compared  with  Arlcwright.  71 

vance  which  was  almost  tantamount  to  a  new  inven- 
tion. It  was  impossible  to  overrate  the  advantages 
which  this  and  other  countries  had  derived  from  his 
untiring  and  devoted  patience  in  prosecuting  the  in- 
vention to  a  successful  issue."  Baron  Charles  Dupin 
compared  the  farmer  Smith  with  the  barber  Arkwright: 
"  He  had  the  same  perseverance  and  the  same  indom- 
itable courage.  These  two  moral  qualities  enabled  him 
to  triumph  over  every  obstacle."  This  was  the  great 
merit  of  "  Screw  "  Smith — that  he  was  determined  to 
realize  what  his  predecessors  had  dreamed  of  achiev- 
ing; and  he  eventually  accomplished  his  great  purpose. 


CHAPTER  III. 
JOHN   HARBISON, 

INVENTOR  OF  THE  MAEINE  CHEONOMETEE.* 

"No  man  knows  who  invented  the  mariner's  compass,  or  who 
first  hollowed  out  a  canoe  from  a  log.  The  power  to  observe  accu- 
rately the  sun,  moon,  and  planets,  so  as  to  fix  a  vessel's  actual  posi- 
tion when  far  out  of  sight  of  land,  enabling  long  voyages  to  be  safely 
made ;  the  marvellous  improvements  in  ship-building,  which  short- 
ened passages  by  sailing  vessels,  and  vastly  reduced  freights  even  be- 
fore steam  gave  an  independent  force  to  the  carrier — each  and  all 
were  done  by  small  advances,  which  together  contributed  to  the  gen- 
eral movement  of  mankind.  .  .  .  Each  owes  all  to  the  others.  The 
forgotten  inventors  live  forever  in  the  usefulness  of  the  work  they 
have  done  and  the  progress  they  have  striven  for." — H.  M.  Hynjo- 

MAN. 

One  of  the  most  extraordinary  things  connected 
with  applied  science  is  the  method  by  which  the  navi- 
gator is  enabled  to  find  the  exact  spot  of  sea  on  which 
his  ship  rides.  There  may  be  nothing  but  water  and 
sky  within  his. view;  he  may  be  in  the  midst  of  the 
ocean,  or  gradually  nearing  the  land;  the  curvature  of 
the  globe  baffles  the  search  of  his  telescope;  but  if  he 
have  a  correct  chronometer,  and  can  make  an  astro- 
nomical observation,  he  may  readily  ascertain  his  lon- 
gitude, and  know  his  approximate  position — how  far 
he  is  from  home,  as  well  as  from  his  intended  destina- 
tion.    He  is  even  enabled,  at  some  special  place,  to 

*  Originally  published  in  Longman's  Magazine,  but  now  rewritten 
and  enlarged. 


Use  of  Practical  Astronomy.  1-> 

send  down  his  grappling-irons  into  the  sea,  and  pick 
nj>  an  electrical  cable  for  examination  and  repair. 

This  is  the  result  of  a  knowledge  of  practical  as- 
tronomy. "  Place  an  astronomer,"  says  Mr.  NewCOmb, 
"on  board  a  ship;  blindfold  him;  carry  him  by  any 
route  to  any  ocean  on  the  globe,  whether  under  the 
tropics  or  in  one  of  the  frigid  zones;  land  him  on  the 
wildest  rock  that  can  be  found;  remove  his  bandage, 
and  give  him,  a  chronometer  regulated  to  Greenwich 
or  Washington  time,  a  transit  instrument  with  the 
proper  appliances,  and  the  necessary  books  and  tables, 
and  in  a  single  clear  night  he  can  tell  his  position  with- 
in a  hundred  yards  by  observations  of  the  stars.  This, 
from  a  utilitarian  point  of  view,  is  one  of  the  most 
important  operations  of  practical  astronomy."  * 

The  marine  chronometer  Avas  the  outcome  of  the 
crying  want  of  the  sixteenth  century  for  an  instru- 
ment that  should  assist  the  navigator  to  find  his  longi- 
tude on  the  pathless  ocean.  Spain  was  then  the  prin- 
cipal naval  power;  she  was  the  most  potent  monarchy 
in  Europe,  and  held  half  America  under  her  sway. 
Philip  III.  offered  100,000  crowns  for  any  discovery  by 
means  of  which  the  longitude  might  be  determined  by 
a  better  method  than  by  the  log,  which  was  found  very 
defective.  Holland  next  became  a  great  naval  power, 
and  followed  the  example  of  Spain  in  offering  30,000 
florins  for  a  similar  discovery.  But,  though  some  ef- 
forts were  made,  nothing  practical  was  done,  principal- 
ly through  the  defective  state  of  astronomical  instru- 
ments. England  succeeded  Spain  and  Holland  as  a 
naval  power  ;  and  when  Charles  II.  established  the 
Greenwich  Observatory,  it  was  made  a  special  point 
that  Flamsteed,  the  astronomer-royal,  should  direct  his 

*  "Popular  Astronomy.''  By  Simon  Newcomb,  LL.D.,  Professor 
U.  S.  Naval  Observatory. 


74  John  Harrison. 


best  energies  to  the  perfecting  of  a  method  for  find- 
ing the  longitude  by  astronomical  observations.  But 
though  Flamsteed,  together  with  Hallay  and  Newton, 
made  some  progress,  they  were  prevented  from  ob- 
taining ultimate  success  by  the  want  of  efficient  chro- 
nometers and  the  defective  nature  of  astronomical  in- 
struments. 

Nothing  was  done  until  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne, 
when  a  petition  was  presented  to  the  Legislature  on 
the  25th  of  May,  1714,  by  "several  captains  of  her 
majesty's  ships,  merchants  in  London,  and  command- 
ers of  merchantmen,  in  behalf  of  themselves,  and  of  all 
others  concerned  in  the  navigation  of  Great  Britain," 
setting  forth  the  importance  of  the  accurate  discovery 
of  the  longitude,  and  the  inconvenience  and  danger  to 
which  ships  were  subjected  from  the  want  of  some 
suitable  method  of  discovering  it.  The  petition  was 
referred  to  a  committee,  which  took  evidence  on  the 
subject.  It  appears  that  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  with  his 
extraordinary  sagacity,  hit  the  mark  in  his  report. 
"  One  is,"  he  said,  "  by  a  watch  to  keep  time  exactly; 
but,  by  reason  of  the  motion  of  a  ship,  and  the  variation 
of  heat  a7id  cold,  wet  and  dry,  and  the  difference  of 
gravity  in  different  latitudes,  such  a  watch  hath  not  yet 
been  made" 

An  act  was,  however,  passed  in  the  session  of  1714, 
offering  a  very  large  public  reward  to  inventors : 
£10,000  to  any  one  who  should  discover  a  method  of 
determining  the  longitude  to  one  degree  of  a  great 
circle,  or  sixty  geographical  miles  ;  £15,000  if  it  deter- 
mined the  same  to  two  thirds  of  that  distance,  or  forty 
geographical  miles  ;  and  £20,000  if  it  determined  the 
same  to  one  half  of  the  same  distance,  or  thirty  geo- 
graphical miles.  Commissioners  were  appointed  by 
the  same  act,  who  were  instructed  that  "  one  moiety 
or  half  part  of  such  reward  shall  be  due  and  paid  when 


Experiments  in  Watchmaking.  75 


the  said  commissioners,  or  the  major  part  of  them,  do 
agree  that  any  such  method  extends  to  the  security  of 
ships  within  eighty  geographical  miles  of  the  shore, 
which  are  places  of  the  greatest  danger;  and  the  other 
moiety  or  half  part  when  a  ship,  by  the  appointment  of 
the  said  commissioners,  or  the  major  part  of  them, 
shall  actually  sail  over  the  ocean  from  Great  Britain 
to  any  such  port  in  the  West  Indies  as  those  commis- 
sioners, or  the  major  part  of  them,  shall  choose  or 
nominate  for  the  experiment,  without  losing  the  longi- 
tude beyond  the  limits  before  mentioned." 

The  terms  of  this  offer  indicate  how  great  must  have 
been  the  risk  and  inconvenience  which  it  was  desired 
to  remedy.  Indeed,  it  is  almost  inconceivable  that  a 
reward  so  great  could  be  held  out  for  a  method  which 
would  merely  afford  security  within  eighty  geographi- 
cal miles ! 

This  splendid  reward  for  a  method  of  discovering 
the  longitude  was  offered  to  the  world — to  inventors 
and  scientific  men  of  all  countries — without  restriction 
of  race,  or  nation,  or  language.  As  might  naturally  be 
expected,  the  prospect  of  obtaining  it  stimulated  many 
ingenious  men  to  make  suggestions  and  contrive  exper- 
iments; but  formany  years  the  successful  construction 
of  a  marine  time-keeper  seemed  almost  hopeless.  At 
length,  to  the  surprise  of  every  one,  the  prize  was  won 
by  a  village  carpenter — a  person  of  no  school,  or  uni- 
versity, or  college  whatever. 

Even  so  distinguished  an  artist  and  philosopher  as 
Sir  Christopher  Wren  was  engaged,  as  late  in  his  life 
as  the  year  1720,  in  attempting  to  solve  this  important 
problem.  As  has  been  observed,  in  the  memoir  of  him 
contained  in  the  "  Biographia  Britannica,"  *  "  This  no- 

*  "Biographia  Britannica,"  vol.  vi.  part  2,  p.  4375.  This  volume 
was  published  ia  1766,  before  the  final  reward  had  been  granted  to 
Harrison. 


76  John  Harrison, 


ble  invention,  like  some  others  of  the  most  useful  ones 
to  human  life,  seems  to  be  reserved  for  the  peculiar 
glory  of  an  ordinary  mechanic,  who,  by  indefatigable 
industry,  under  the  guidance  of  no  ordinary  sagacity, 
hath  seemingly  at  last  surmounted  all  difficulties,  and 
brought  it  to  a  most  unexpected  degree  of  perfection." 
Where  learning  and  science  failed,  natural  genius 
seems  to  have  triumphed. 

The  truth  is,  that  the  great  mechanic,  like  the  great 
poet,  is  born,  not  made  ;  and  John  Harrison,  the  win- 
ner of  the  famous  prize,  was  a  born  mechanic.  He 
did  not,  however,  accomplish  his  object  without  the 
exercise  of  the  greatest  skill,  patience,  and  persever- 
ance. His  efforts  were  long,  laborious,  and  sometimes 
apparently  hopeless.  Indeed,  his  life,  so  far  as  we  can 
ascertain  the  facts,  affords  one  of  the  finest  examples 
of  difficulties  encountered  and  triumphantly  overcome, 
and  of  undaunted  perseverance  eventually  crowned  by 
success,  which  is  to  be  found  in  the  whole  range  of 
biography. 

No  complete  narrative  of  Harrison's  career  was  ever 
written.  Only  a  short  notice  of  him  appears  in  the 
"  Biographia  Britannica,"  published  in  1766,  during 
his  lifetime — the  facts  of  which  were  obtained  from 
himself.  A  few  notices  of  him  appear  in  the  Annual 
Register,  also  published  during  his  lifetime.  The  final 
notice  appeared  in  the  volume  published  in  1777,  the 
year  after  his  death.  ~No  life  of  him  has  since  ap- 
peared. Had  he  been  a  destructive  hero,  and  fought 
battles  by  land  or  sea,  we  should  have  had  biographies 
of  him  without  end.  But  he  pursued  a  more  peaceful 
and  industrious  course.  His  discovery  conferred  an 
incalculable  advantage  on  navigation,  and  enabled  in- 
numerable lives  to  be  saved  at  sea;  it  also  added  to 
the  domains  of  science  by  its  more  exact  measurement 
of  time.     But  his  memory  has  been  allowed  to  pass 


His  Childhood  and  Youth.  77 

silently  away,  without  any  record  being  left  for  the 
benefit  and  advantage  of  those  who  have  succeeded 
him.  The  following  memoir  includes  nearly  all  that 
is  known  of  the  life  and  labors  of  John  Harrison. 

He  was  born  at  Foulby,  in  the  parish  of  Wragby, 
near  Pontefract,  Yorkshire,  in  May,  1693.  His  father, 
Henry  Harrison,  was  carpenter  and  joiner  to  Sir  Row- 
land Wynne,  owner  of  the  Nostel  Priory  estate.  The 
present  house  was  built  by  the  baronet  on  the  site  of 
the  ancient  priory.  Henry  Harrison  was  a  sort  of  re- 
tainer of  the  family,  and  he  long  continued  in  their 
service. 

Little  is  known  of  the  boy's  education.  It  was  cer- 
tainly of  a  very  inferior  description.  Like  George 
Stephenson,  Harrison  had  always  a  great  difficulty  in 
making  himself  understood,  either  in  speech  or  writing. 
Indeed,  every  board-school  boy  receives  a  better  educa- 
tion now  than  John  Harrison  did  a  hundred  and  eighty 
years  ago.  But  education  does  not  altogether  come  by 
reading  and  writing.  The  boy  was  possessed  of  vigor- 
ous natural  abilities.  He  was  especially  attracted  by 
every  machine  that  moved  upon  wheels.  The  boy  was 
"father  to  the  man."  When  six  years  old,  and  lying 
sick  of  small-pox,  a  going  watch  was  placed  upon  his 
pillow,  which  afforded  him  infinite  delight. 

When  seven  years  old  he  was  taken  by  his  father  to 
Barrow,  near  Barton-on-Humber,  where  Sir  Rowland 
Wynne  had  another  residence  and  estate.  Henry  Har- 
rison was  still  acting  as  the  baronet's  carpenter  and 
joiner.  In  course  of  time  young  Harrison  joined  his 
father  in  the  workshop,  and  proved  of  great  use  to 
him.  His  opportunities  for  acquiring  knowledge  were 
still  very  few,  but  he  applied  his  powers  of  observation 
and  his  workmanship  upon  the  things  which  were 
nearest  him.  Pie  worked  in  wood,  and  to  wood  he  first 
turned  his  attention. 


78  John  Harrison. 


He  was  still  fond  of  machines  going  upon  wheels. 
He  had  enjoyed  the  sight  of  the  big  watch  going  upon 
brass  wheels  when  he  was  a  boy;  but,  now  that  he  was 
a  workman  in  wood,  he  proposed  to  make  an  eight-day 
clock,  with  wheels  of  that  material.  He  made  this 
clock  when  he  was  only  twenty-two  years  old,  so  that 
he  must  have  made  diligent  use  of  his  opportunities. 
He  had,  of  course,  difficulties  to  encounter,  and  nothing 
can  be  accomplished  without  them;  for  it  is  difficulties 
that  train  the  habits  of  application  and  perseverance. 
But  he  succeeded  in  making  an  effective  clock,  which 
counted  the  time  with  regularity.  This  clock  is  still 
in  existence.  It  is  to  be  seen  at  the  Museum  of  Patents, 
South  Kensington;  and  when  we  visited  it  a  few 
months  ago  it  was  going,  and  still  marking  the  mo- 
ments as  they  passed.  It  is  contained  in  a  case  about 
six  feet  high,  with  a  glass  front,  showing  a  pendulum 
and  two  weights.  Over  the  clock  is  the  following  in- 
scription : 

"This  clock  was  made  at  Barrow,  Lincolnshire,  in  the  year  1715, 
by  John  Harrison,  celebrated  as  the  inventor  of  a  nautical  timepiece, 
or  chronometer,  which  gained  the  reward  of  £20,000  offered  by  the 
Board  of  Longitude,  a.d.  1767.* 

"This  clock  strikes  the  hour,  indicates  the  day  of  the  month,  and, 
with  one  exception  (the  escapement)  the  wheels  are  entirely  made  of 
wood." 

This,  however,  was  only  a  beginning.  Harrison  pro- 
ceeded to  make  better  clocks ;  and  then  he  found  it 
necessary  to  introduce  metal,  which  was  more  lasting. 
He  made  pivots  of  brass,  which  moved  more  conven- 
iently in  sockets  of  wood  with  the  use  of  oil.  He  also 
caused  the  teeth  of  his  wheels  to  run  against  cylin- 
drical rollers  of  wood,  fixed  by  brass  pins,  at  a  proper 
distance  from  the  axis  of  the  pinions  ;  and  thus  to  a 

*  This  date  is  not  correct,  as  will  be  found  in  the  subsequent  state- 
ment. 


The  Compensation  Pendulum.  79 

considerable  extent  removed  the  inconveniences  of 
friction. 

In  the  meantime  Harrison  eagerly  improved  every 
incident  from  which  he  might  derive  further  informa- 
tion. There  was  a  clergyman  who  came  every  Sunday 
to  the  village  to  officiate  in  the  neighborhood;  and 
having  heard  of  the  sedulous  application  of  the  young 
carpenter,  he  lent  him  a  manuscript  copy  of  Professor 
Saunderson's  discourses.  That  blind  professor  had  pre- 
pared several  lectures  on  natural  philosophy  for  the  use 
of  his  students,  though  they  were  not  intended  for  pub- 
lication. Young  Harrison  now  proceeded  to  copy  them 
out,  together  with  the  diagrams.  Sometimes,  indeed, 
he  spent  the  greater  part  of  the  night  in  writing  or 
drawing. 

As  part  of  his  business  he  undertook  to  survey  land, 
and  to  repair  clocks  and  watches,  besides  carrying  on 
his  trade  of  a  carpenter.  He  soon  obtained  a  consider- 
able knowledge  of  what  had  been  done  in  clocks  and 
watches,  and  was  able  to  do  not  only  what  the  best 
professional  workers  had  done,  but  to  strike  out  entire- 
ly new  lights  in  the  clock  and  watch  making  business. 
He  found  out  a  method  of  diminishing  friction  by  add- 
ing a  joint  to  the  pallets  of  the  pendulum,  whereby 
they  were  made  to  work  in  the  nature  of  rollers  of  a 
large  radius,  without  any  sliding,  as  usual,  upon  the 
teeth  of  the  wheel.  He  constructed  a  clock  on  the  re- 
coiling principle,  which  went  perfectly,  and  never  lost 
a  minute  within  fourteen  years.  Sir  Edmund  Denison 
Beckett  says  that  he  invented  this  method  in  order  to 
save  himself  the  trouble  of  going  so  frequently  to  oil 
the  escapement  of  a  turret  clock,  of  which  he  had 
charge ;  though  there  were  other  influences  at  work 
besides  this. 

But  his  most  important  invention,  at  this  early  period 
of  his  life,  was   his  compensation  pendulum.     Every 


80  John  Harrison. 


one  knows  that  metals  expand  with  heat  and  contract 
by  cold.  The  pendulum  of  the  clock,  therefore,  ex- 
panded in  summer  and  contracted  in  winter,  thereby 
interfering  with  the  regular  going  of  the  clock.  Huy- 
gens  had  by  his  cylindrical  checks  removed  the  great 
irregularity  arising  from  the  unequal  lengths  of  the 
oscillations;  but  the  pendulum  was  affected  by  the 
tossing  of  a  ship  at  sea,  and  was  also  subject  to  a  vari- 
tion  in  weight,  depending  on  the  parallel  of  latitude. 
Graham,  the  well-known  clockmaker,  invented  the  mer- 
curial compensation  pendulum,  consisting  of  a  glass  or 
iron  jar  filled  with  quicksilver  and  fixed  to  the  end  of 
the  pendulum  rod.  When  the  rod  was  lengthened  by 
heat,  the  quicksilver  and  the  jar  which  contained  it 
were  simultaneously  expanded  and  elevated,  and  the 
centre  of  oscillation  was  thus  continued  at  the  same 
distance  from  the  point  of  suspension. 

But  the  difficulty,  to  a  certain  extent,  remained  un- 
conquered  until  Harrison  took  the  matter  in  hand. 
He  observed  that  all  rods  of  metal  do  not  alter  their 
lengths  equally  by  heat,  or,  on  the  contrary,  become 
shorter  by  cold,  but  some  more  sensibly  than  others. 
After  innumerable  experiments  Harrison  at  length 
composed  a  frame  somewhat  resembling  a  gridiron,  in 
which  the  alternate  bars  were  of  steel  and  of  brass, 
and  so  arranged  that  those  which  expanded  the  most 
were  counteracted  by  those  which  expanded  the  least. 
By  this  means  the  pendulum  contained  the  power  of 
equalizing  its  own  action,  and  the  centre  of  oscillation 
continued  at  the  same  absolute  distance  from  the  point 
of  suspension  through  all  the  variations  of  heat  and 
cold  during  the  year.* 


*  Harrison's  compensation  pendulum  was  afterwards  improved  by 
Arnold,  Eamshaw,  and  other  English  makers.  Dent's  prismatic  bal- 
ance is  now  considered  the  best. 


The  Chronometer.  81 

Thus  by  the  year  1726,  when  he  was  only  thirty- 
three  years  old,  Harrison  had  furnished  himself  with 
two  compensation  clocks,  in  which  all  the  irregularities 
to  which  these  machines  were  subject  were  either  re- 
moved or  so  happily  balanced,  one  metal  against  the 
other,  that  the  two  clocks  kept  time  together  in  differ- 
ent parts  of  his  house,  without  the  variation  of  more 
than  a  single  second  in  the  month.  One  of  them,  in- 
deed, which  he  kept  by  him  for  his  own  use,  and  con- 
stantly compared  with  a  fixed  star,  did  not  vary  so 
much  as  one  whole  minute  during  the  ten  years  that 
he  continued  in  the  country  after  finishing  the  ma- 
chine.* 

Living,  as  he  did,  not  far  from  the  sea,  Harrison 
next  endeavored  to  arrange  his  timekeeper  for  pur- 
poses of  navigation.  He  tried  his  clock  in  a  vessel  be- 
longing to  Barton-on-Humber ;  but  his  compensating 
pendulum  could  there  be  of  comparatively  little  use, 
for  it  was  liable  to  be  tossed  hither  or  thither  by  the 
sudden  motions  of  the  ship.  He  found  it  necessary, 
therefore,  to  mount  a  chronometer,  or  portable  time- 
keeper, which  might  be  taken  from  place  to  place,  and 
subjected  to  the  violent  and  irregular  motion  of  a  ship 
at  sea  without  affecting  its  rate  of  going.  It  was  evi- 
dent to  him  that  the  first  mover  must  be  changed  from 
a  weight  and  pendulum  to  a  spring  wound  up  and  a 
compensating  balance. 

He  now  applied  his  genius  in  this  direction.  After 
pondering  over  the  subject,  he  proceeded  to  London 
in  1728,  and  exhibited  his  drawings  to  Dr.  Halley, 
then  astronomer-royal.  The  doctor  referred  him  to 
Mr.  George  Graham,  the  distinguished  horologer,  in- 
ventor of  the  dead-beat  escapement  and  the  mercurial 

*  See  Mr.  Eolke's  speech  to  the  Koyal  Society,  30th  of  November, 
1749. 

4* 


82  John  Harrison. 


pendulum.  After  examining  the  drawings  and  hold- 
ing some  converse  with  Harrison,  Graham  perceived 
him  to  be  a  man  of  uncommon  merit,  and  gave  him 
every  encouragement.  He  recommended  him,  how- 
ever, to  make  his  machine  before  again  applying  to  the 
Board  of  Longitude.  Harrison  returned  home  to  Bar- 
row to  complete  his  task,  and  many  years  elapsed  be- 
fore he  again  appeared  in  London  to  present  his  first 
chronometer. 

The  remarkable  success  which  Harrison  had  achieved 
in  his  compensating  pendulum  could  not  but  urge  him 
on  to  further  experiments.  He  was,  no  doubt,  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  influenced  by  the  reward  of  £20,000  which 
the  English  government  had  offered  for  an  instrument 
that  should  enable  the  longitude  to  be  more  accurately 
determined  by  navigators  at  sea  than  was  then  possi- 
ble ;  and  it  was  with  the  object  of  obtaining  pecuniary 
assistance  to  assist  him  in  completing  his  chronometer 
that  Harrison  had,  in  1728,  made  his  first  visit  to  Lon- 
don to  exhibit  his  drawings. 

The  act  of  Parliament  offering  the  superb  reward 
was  passed  in  1714,  fourteen  years  before,  but  no  at- 
tempt had  been  made  to  claim  it.  It  was  right  that 
England,  then  rapidly  advancing  to  the  first  position 
as  a  commercial  nation,  should  make  every  effort  to 
render  navigation  less  hazardous.  Before  correct  chro- 
nometers were  invented,  or  good  lunar  tables  were  pre- 
pared,* the  ship,  when  fairly  at  sea,  out  of  sight  of 
land,  and  battling  with  the  winds  and  tides,  was  in  a 
measure  lost.  No  method  existed  for  accurately  ascer- 
taining the  longitude.  The  ship  might  be  out  of  its 
course  for  one  or  two  hundred  miles  for  anything  that 

*  No  trustworthy  lunar  tables  existed  at  that  time.  It  was  not  until 
the  year  1753  that  Tobias  Mayer,  a  German,  published  the  first  lunar 
tables  which  could  be  relied  upon.  For  this,  the  British  government 
afterwards  awarded  to  Mayer's  widow  the  sum  of  £5000. 


The  Sextant  83 


the  navigator  knew;  and  only  the  wreck  of  his  ship  on 
some  unknown  coast  told  of  the  mistake  that  he  had 
made  in  his  reckoning. 

It  may  here  be  mentioned  that  it  was  comparatively 
easy  to  determine  the  latitude  of  a  ship  at  sea  every 
day  when  the  sun  was  visible.  The  latitude — that  is, 
the  distance  of  any  spot  from  the  equator  and  the  pole 
— might  be  found  by  a  simple  observation  with  the  sex- 
tant. The  altitude  of  the  sun  at  noon  is  found,  and  by 
a  short  calculation  the  position  of  the  ship  can  be  as- 
certained. 

The  sextant,  which  is  the  instrument  universally 
used  at  sea,  was  gradually  evolved  from  similar  instru- 
ments used  from  the  earliest  times.  The  object  of 
this  instrument  has  always  been  to  find  the  angular 
distance  between  two  bodies — that  is  to  say,  the  angle 
of  two  straight  lines  which  are  drawn  from  those  bod- 
ies to  meet  in  the  observer's  eye.  The  simplest  instru- 
ment of  this  kind  may  be  well  represented  by  a  pair 
of  compasses.  If  the  hinge  is  held  to  the  eye,  one  leg 
pointed  to  the  distant  horizon,  and  the  other  leg  point- 
ed to  the  sun,  the  two  legs  will  be  the  angular  distance 
of  the  sun  from  the  horizon  at  the  moment  of  obser- 
vation. 

Until  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  in- 
strument used  was  of  this  simple  kind.  It  was  gener- 
ally a  large  quadrant,  with  one  or  two  bars  moving  on 
a  hinge — to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  huge  pair  of 
compasses.  The  direction  of  the  sight  was  fixed  by 
the  use  of  a  slit  and  a  pointer,  much  as  in  the  ordinary 
rifle.  This  instrument  was  vastly  improved  by  the  use 
of  a  telescope,  which  not  only  allowed  fainter  objects 
to  be  seen,  but  especially  enabled  the  sight  to  be  accu- 
rately directed  to  the  object  observed. 

The  instruments  of  the  pretelescopic  age  reached 
their  glory  in  the  hands  of  Tycho  Brahe.     He  used 


84:  John  Harrison, 


magnificent  instruments  of  the  simple  "pair  of  com- 
passes "  kind — circles,  quadrants,  and  sextants.  These 
were,  for  the  most  part,  ponderous  fixed  instruments, 
of  little  or  no  use  for  the  purposes  of  navigation.  But 
Tycho  Brahe's  sextant  proved  the  forerunner  of  the 
modern  instrument.  The  general  structure  is  the  same; 
but  the  vast  improvement  of  the  modern  sextant  is  due, 
firstly,  to  the  use  of  the  reflecting  mirror,  and,  second- 
ly, to  the  use  of  the  telescope  for  accurate  sighting. 
These  improvements  were  due  to  many  scientific  men 
— to  William  Gascoigne,  who  first  used  the  telescope, 
about  1640;  to  Robert  Hooke,  who,  in  1660,  proposed 
to  apply  it  to  the  quadrant;  to  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  who 
designed  a  reflecting  quadrant;*  and  to  John  Hadley, 
who  introduced  it.  The  modern  sextant  is  merely  a 
modification  of  Newton's  or  Hadley 's  quadrant,  and 
its  present  construction  seems  to  be  perfect. 

It  therefore  became  possible  accurately  to  determine 
the  position  of  a  ship  at  sea  as  regarded  its  latitude. 
But  it  was  quite  different  as  regarded  the  longitude; 
that  is,  the  distance  of  any  place  from  a  given  meri- 
dian, eastward  or  westward.  In  the  case  of  longitude, 
there  is  no  fixed  spot  to  which  reference  can  be  made. 
The  rotation  of  the  earth  makes  the  existence  of  such 
a  spot  impossible.  The  question  of  longitude  is  purely 
a  question  of  time.  The  circuit  of  the  globe,  east  and 
west,  is  simply  represented  by  twenty -four  hours. 
Each  place  has  its  own  time.  It  is  very  easy  to  deter- 
mine the  local  time  at  any  spot  by  observations  made 
at  that  spot.     But,  as  time  is  always  changing,  the 

*  Sir  Isaac  Newton  gave  his  design  to  Edmund  Halley,  then  as- 
tronomer-royal. Halley  laid  it  on  one  side,  and  it  was  found  among 
his  papers  after  his  death,  in  1742,  twenty-five  years  after  the  death 
of  Newton.  A  similar  omission  was  made  hy  Sir  G.  B.  Airey,  which 
led  to  the  discovery  of  Neptune  being  attributed  to  Leverrier  instead 
of  to  Adams. 

% 


Methods  of  Obtaining  Longitude.  85 

knowledge  of  the  local  time  gives  no  idea  of  the  act- 
ual position;  and  still  less  of  a  moving  object — say,  of 
a  ship  at  sea.  But  if,  in  any  locality,  we  know  the 
local  time,  and  also  the  local  time  of  some  other  local- 
ity at  that  moment — say,  of  the  observatory  at  Green- 
wich— we  can,  by  comparing  the  two  local  times,  de- 
termine the  difference  of  local  times,  or,  what  is  the 
same  thing,  the  difference  of  longitude  between  the 
two  places.  It  was  necessary,  therefore,  for  the  navi- 
gator to  be  in  possession  of  a  first-rate  watch,  or  chro- 
nometer, to  enable  him  to  determine  accurately  the  po- 
sition of  his  ship  at  sea,  as  respected  the  longitude. 

Before  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  good 
watches  were  comparatively  unknown.  The  navigator 
mainly  relied,  for  his  approximate  longitude,  upon  his 
dead  reckoning,  without  any  observation  of  the  heav- 
enly bodies.  He  depended  upon  the  accuracy  of  the 
course  which  he  had  steered  by  the  compass,  and  the 
mensuration  of  the  ship's  velocity  by  an  instrument 
called  the  log,  as  well  as  by  combining  and  rectify- 
ing all  the  allowances  for  drift,  lee-way,  and  so  on,  ac- 
cording to  the  trim  of  the  ship;  but  all  of  these  were 
liable  to  much  uncertainty,  especially  when  the  sea 
was  in  a  boisterous  condition.  There  was  another  and 
independent  course  which  might  have  been  adopted, 
that  is,  by  observation  of  the  moon,  which  is  constant- 
ly moving  among  the  stars  from  west  to  east.  But, 
until  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  good  lunar 
tables  were  as  much  unknown  as  good  watches. 

Hence  a  method  of  ascertaining  the  longitude,  with 
the  same  degree  of  accuracy  which  is  attainable  in  re- 
spect of  latitude,  had  for  ages  been  the  grand  deside- 
ratum of  men  "who  go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships." 
Mr.  Macpherson,  in  his  important  work  entitled  "  The 
Annals  of  Commerce,"  observes,  "Since  the  year  1714, 
when  Parliament  offered  a  reward  of  £20,000  for  the 


86  John  Harrison, 


best  method  of  ascertaining  the  longitude  at  sea,  many 
schemes  have  been  devised,  but  all  to  little  or  no  pur- 
pose, as  going  generally  upon  wrong  principles,  till  that 
heaven-taught  artist,  Mr.  John  Harrison,  arose;"  and 
by  him,  as  Mr.  Macpherson  goes  on  to  say,  the  difficulty 
was  conquered,  having  devoted  to  it  "the  assiduous 
studies  of  a  long  life." 

The  preamble  of  the  act  of  Parliament  in  question 
runs  as  follows:  "  Whereas  it  is  well  known  by  all  that 
are  acquainted  with  the  art  of  navigation  that  nothing 
is  so  much  wanted  and  desired  at  sea  as  the  discovery 
of  the  longitude,  for  the  safety  and  quickness  of  voy- 
ages, the  preservation  of  ships,  and  the  lives  of  men," 
and  so  on.  The  act  proceeds  to  constitute  certain  per- 
sons commissioners  for  the  discovery  of  the  longitude, 
with  power  to  receive  and  experiment  upon  proposals 
for  that  purpose,  and  to  grant  sums  of  money  not  ex- 
ceeding £2000  to  aid  in  such  experiments.  It  will  be 
remembered,  from  what  has  been  above  stated,  that  a 
reward  of  £10,000  was  to  be  given  to  the  person  who 
should  contrive  a  method  of  determining  the  longitude 
within  one  degree  of  a  great  circle,  or  sixty  geograph- 
ical miles;  £15,000  within  forty  geographical  miles; 
and  £20,000  within  thirty  geographical  miles. 

It  will,  in  these  days,  be  scarcely  believed  that  little 
more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  a  prize  of  not 
less  than  ten  thousand  pounds  should  have  been  offered 
for  a  method  of  determining  the  longitude  within  sixty 
miles,  and  that  double  the  amount  should  have  been 
offered  for  a  method  of  determining  it  within  thirty 
miles !  The  amount  of  these  rewards  is  sufficient 
proof  of  the  fearful  necessity  for  improvement  which 
then  existed  in  the  methods  of  navigation.  And  yet, 
from  the  date  of  the  passing  of  the  act  in  IT  14  until 
the  year  1736,  when  Harrison  finished  his  first  time- 
piece, nothing  had  been  done  towards  ascertaining  the 


His  Tools  and  Materials.  87 

longitude  more  accurately,  even  within  the  wide  limits 
specified  by  the  act  of  Parliament.  Although  several 
schemes  had  been  projected,  none  of  them  had  proved 
successful,  and  the  offered  rewards  therefore  still  re- 
mained unclaimed. 

To  return  to  Harrison.  After  reaching  his  home  at 
Barrow,  after  his  visit  to  London  in  1*728,  he  began 
his  experiments  for  the  construction  of  a  marine  chro- 
nometer. The  task  was  one  of  no  small  difficulty.  It 
was  necessary  to  provide  against  irregularities  arising 
from  the  motion  of  a  ship  at  sea,  and  to  obviate  the 
effect  of  alternations  of  temperature  in  the  machine 
itself,  as  well  as  the  oil  with  which  it  was  lubricated. 
A  thousand  obstacles  presented  themselves,  but  they 
were  not  enough  to  deter  Harrison  from  grappling 
with  the  work  he  had  set  himself  to  perform. 

Every  one  knows  the  beautiful  machinery  of  a  time- 
piece, and  the  perfect  tools  required  to  produce  such 
a  machine.  Some  of  these  tools  Harrison  procured  in 
London,  but  the  greater  number  he  provided  for  him- 
self, and  many  entirely  new  adaptations  were  required 
for  his  chronometer.  As  wood  could  no  longer  be  ex- 
clusively employed,  as  in  his  first  clock,  he  had  to  teach 
himself  to  work  accurately  and  minutely  in  brass  and 
other  metals.  Having  been  unable  to  obtain  any  as- 
sistance from  the  Board  of  Longitude,  he  was  under 
the  necessity,  while  carrying  forward  his  experiments, 
of  maintaining  himself  by  still  working  at  his  trade  of 
a  carpenter  and  joiner.  This  will  account  for  the  very 
long  period  that  elapsed  before  he  could  bring  his  chro- 
nometer to  such  a  state  as  that  it  might  be  tried  with 
any  approach  to  certainty  in  its  operations. 

Harrison,  besides  his  intentness  and  earnestness,  was 
a  cheerful  and  hopeful  man.  He  had  a  fine  taste  for 
music,  and  organized  and  led  the  choir  of  the  village 
church,  which  attained  a  high  degree  of  perfection. 


88  John  Harrison. 


He  invented  a  curious  monochord,  which  was  not  less 
accurate  than  his  clocks  in  the  mensuration  of  time. 
His  ear  was  distressed  by  the  ringing  of  bells  out  of 
tune,  and  he  set  himself  to  remedy  them.  At  the  par- 
ish church  of  Hull,  for  instance,  the  bells  were  harsh 
and  disagreeable,  and,  by  the  authority  of  the  vicar 
and  churchwardens,  he  was  allowed  to  put  them  into 
a  state  of  exact  tune,  so  that  they  proved  entirely  me- 
lodious. 

But  the  great  work  of  his  life  was  his  marine  chro- 
nometer. He  found  it  necessary,  in  the  first  place,  to 
alter  the  first  mover  of  his  clock  to  a  spring  wound  up, 
so  that  the  regularity  of  the  motionanight  be  derived 
from  the  vibrations  of  balances,  instead  of  those  of  a 
pendulum  as  in  a  standing  clock.  Mr.  Folkes,  Presi- 
dent of  the  Royal  Society,  when  presenting  the  gold 
medal  to  Harrison,  in  1749,  thus  describes  the  arrange- 
ment of  his  new  machine.  The  details  were  obtained 
from  Harrison  himself,  who  was  present.  He  had 
made  use  of  two  balances  situated  in  the  same  plane, 
but  vibrating  in  contrary  directions,  so  that  the  one  of 
these  being  either  way  assisted  by  the  tossing  of  the 
ship,  the  other  might  constantly  be  just  so  much  im- 
peded by  it  at  the  same  time.  As  the  equality  of  the 
times  of  the  vibrations  of  the  balance  of  a  pocket- watch 
is  in  a  great  measure  owing  to  the  spiral  spring  that 
lies  under  it,  so  the  same  was  here  performed  by  the 
like  elasticity  of  four  cylindrical  springs  or  worms,  ap- 
plied near  the  upper  and  lower  extremities  of  the  two 
balances  above  described. 

Then  came  in  the  question  of  compensation.  Harri- 
son's experience  with  the  compensation  pendulum  of 
his  clock  now  proved  of  service  to  him.  He  had  pro- 
ceeded to  introduce  a  similar  expedient  in  his  proposed 
chronometer.  As  is  well  known  to  those  who  are  ac- 
quainted with  the  nature  of  springs  moved  by  balances, 


The  "  Thermometer  KirbP  89 

the  stronger  those  springs  are  the  quicker  the  vibra- 
tions of  the  balances  are  performed,  and  vice  versa ; 
hence  it  follows  that  those  springs,  when  braced  by 
cold,  or  when  relaxed  by  heat,  must  of  necessity  cause 
the  timekeeper  to  go  either  faster  or  slower,  unless 
some  method  could  be  found  to  remedy  the  inconven- 
ience. 

The  method  adopted  by  Harrison  was  his  compensa- 
tion balance,  doubtless  the  backbone  of  his  invention. 
His  "thermometer  kirb,"  he  himself  says,  "is  com- 
posed of  two  thin  plates  of  brass  and  steel,  riveted  to- 
gether in  several  places,  which,  by  the  greater  expan- 
sion of  brass  than  steel  by  heat  and  contraction  by 
cold,  becomes  convex  on  the  brass  side  in  hot  weather 
and  convex  on  the  steel  side  in  cold  weather;  whence, 
one  end  being  fixed,  the  other  end  obtains  a  motion 
corresponding  with  the  changes  of  heat  and  cold,  and 
the  two  pins  at  the  end,  between  which  the  balance- 
spring  passes,  and  which  it  alternately  touches  as  the 
spring  bends  and  unbends  itself,  will  shorten  or  length- 
en the  spring,  as  the  change  of  heat  or  cold  would  oth- 
erwise require  to  be  done  by  hand  in  the  manner  used 
for  regulating  a  common  watch."  Although  the  meth- 
od has  since  been  improved  upon  by  Leroy,  Arnold, 
and  Earnshaw,  it  was  the  beginning  of  all  that  has 
since  been  done  in  the  perfection  of  marine  chronome- 
ters. Indeed,  it  is  amazing  to  think  of  the  number  of 
clever,  skilful,  and  industrious  men  who  have  been  en- 
gaged for  many  hundred  years  in  the  production  of 
that  exquisite  fabric — so  useful  to  everybody,  whether 
scientific  or  otherwise,  on  land  or  sea — the  modern 
watch. 

It  is  unnecessary  here  to  mention  in  detail  the  par- 
ticulars of  Harrison's  invention.  These  were  pub- 
lished by  himself,  in  his  "  Principles  of  Mr.  Harrison's 
Timekeeper."     It  may,  however,  be  mentioned  that  he 


90  John  Harrison. 


invented  a  method  by  which  the  chronometer  might 
be  kept  going  without  losing  any  portion  of  time. 
This  was  during  the  process  of  winding  up,  which  was 
done  once  in  a  day.  While  the  mainspring  was  being 
wound  up,  a  secondary  one  preserved  the  motion  of  the 
wheels,  and  kept  the  machine  going. 

After  seven  years'  labor,  during  which  Harrison  en- 
countered and  overcame  numerous  difficulties,  he  at 
last  completed  his  first  marine  chronometer.  He  placed 
it  in  a  sort  of  movable  frame,  somewhat  resembling 
what  the  sailors  call  a  "compass  jumble,"  but  much 
more  artificially  and  curiously  made  and  arranged.  In 
this  state  the  chronometer  was  tried  from  time  to  time 
in  a  large  barge  on  the  River  Humber,  in  rough  as  well 
as  in  smcoth  weather,  and  it  was  found  to  go  perfectly, 
without  losing  a  moment  of  time. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  Harrison's  chronometer 
when  he  arrived  with  it  in  London,  in  1735,  in  order 
to  apply  to  the  commissioners  appointed  for  providing 
a  public  reward  for  the  discovery  of  the  longitude  at 
sea.  He  first  showed  it  to  several  members  of  the 
Royal  Society,  who  cordially  approved  of  it.  Five 
of  the  most  prominent  members  —  Dr.  Halley,  Dr. 
Smith,  Dr.  Bradley,  Mr.  John  Machin,  and  Mr.  George 
Graham  —  furnished  Harrison  with  a  certificate,  stat- 
ing that  the  principles  of  his  machine  for  measuring 
time  promised  a  very  great  and  sufficient  degree  of  ex- 
actness. In  consequence  of  this  certificate  the  ma- 
chine, at  the  request  of  the  inventor,  and  at  the  rec- 
ommendation of  the  lords  of  the  admiralty,  was  placed 
on  board  a  man-of-war. 

Sir  Charles  Wager,  then  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty, 
wrote  to  the  captain  of  the  Centurion,  stating  that  the 
instrument  had  been  approved  by  mathematicians  as 
the  best  that  had  been  made  for  measuring  time,  and 
requesting  his  kind  treatment  of  Mr.  Harrison,  who 


Test  of  First  Chronometer,  91 

was  to  accompany  it  to  Lisbon.  Captain  Proctor  an- 
swered the  first  lord  from  Spithead,  dated  May  17th, 
1736,  promising  his  attention  to  Harrison's  comfort, 
but  intimating  his  fear  that  he  had  attempted  impos- 
sibilities. It  is  always  so  with  a  new  thing.  The  first 
steam-engine,  the  first  gaslight,  the  first  locomotive, 
the  first  steamboat  to  America,  the  first  electric  tele- 
graph, were  all  impossibilities! 

This  first  chronometer  behaved  very  well  on  the 
outward  voyage  in  the  Centurion.  It  was  not  affect- 
ed by  the  roughest  weather,  or  by  the  working  of  the 
ship  through  the  rolling  waves  of  the  Bay  of  Biscay. 
It  was  brought  back,  with  Harrison,  in  the  Orford 
man-of-war,  when  its  great  utility  was  proved  in  a  re- 
markable manner,  although,  from  the  voyage  being 
nearly  on  a  meridian,  the  risk  of  losing  the  longitude 
was  comparatively  small.  Yet  the  following  was  the 
certificate  of  the  captain  of  the  ship,  dated  the  24th  of 
June,  1737:  "When  we  made  the  land,  the  said  land, 
according  to  my  reckoning  (and  others),  ought  to  have 
been  the  Start;  but,  before  we  knew  what  land  it  was, 
John  Harrison  declared  to  me  and  the  rest  of  the 
ship's  company  that,  according  to  his  observations 
with  his  machine,  it  ought  to  be  the  Lizard  —  the 
which,  indeed,  it  was  found  to  be,  his  observation 
showing  the  ship  to  be  more  west  than  my  reckoning, 
above  one  degree  and  twenty-six  miles  " — that  is,  near- 
ly ninety  miles  out  of  its  course! 

Six  days  later — that  is,  on  the  30th  of  June — the 
Board  of  Longitude  met,  when  Harrison  was  present, 
and  produced  the  chronometer  with  which  he  had  made 
the  voyage  to  Lisbon  and  back.  The  minute  states: 
"Mr.  John  Harrison  produced  a  new  invented  ma- 
chine, in  the  nature  of  clockwork,  whereby  he  pro- 
poses to  keep  time  at  sea  with  more  exactness  than 
by  any  other  instrument  or  method  hitherto  contrived, 


92  John  Harrison. 


in  order  to  the  discovery  of  the  longitude  at  sea;  and 
proposes  to  make  another  machine  of  smaller  dimen- 
sions within  the  space  of  two  years,  whereby  he  will 
endeavor  to  correct  some  defects  which  he  hath  found 
in  that  already  prepared,  so  as  to  render  the  same 
more  perfect ;  which  machine,  when  completed,  he  is 
desirous  of  having  tried  in  one  of  his  majesty's  ships 
that  shall  be  bound  to  the  West  Indies;  but  at  the 
same  time  represented  that  he  should  not  be  able,  by 
reason  of  his  necessitous  circumstances,  to  go  on  and 
finish  his  said  machine  without  assistance,  and  request- 
ed that  he  may  be  furnished  with  the  sum  of  £500,  to 
put  him  in  a  capacity  to  perform  the  same,  and  to  make 
a  perfect  experiment  thereof." 

The  result  of  the  meeting  was  that  £500  was  ordered 
to  be  paid  to  Harrison,  one  moiety  as  soon  as  conven- 
ient, and  the  other  when  he  has  produced  a  certificate 
from  the  captain  of  one  of  his  majesty's  ships  that  he 
has  put  the  machine  on  board  into  the  captain's  pos- 
session. Mr.  George  Graham,  who  was  consulted,  urged 
that  the  commissioners  should  grant  Harrison  at  least 
£1000,  but  they  only  awarded  him  half  the  sum,  and 
at  first  only  a  moiety  of  the  amount  voted.  At  the 
recommendation  of  Lord  Monson,  who  was  present, 
Harrison  accepted  the  £250  as  a  help  towards  the 
heavy  expenses  which  he  had  already  incurred,  and 
was  again  about  to  incur,  in  perfecting  the  invention. 
He  was  instructed  to  make  his  new  chronometer  of  less 
dimensions,  as  the  one  exhibited  was  cumbersome  and 
heavy,  and  occupied  too  much  space  on  board. 

He  accordingly  proceeded  to  make  his  second  chro- 
nometer. It  occupied  a  space  of  only  about  half  the 
size  of  the  first.  He  introduced  several  improvements. 
He  lessened  the  number  of  the  wheels,  and  thereby 
diminished  friction.  But  the  general  arrangement  re- 
mained the  same.     This  second  machine  was  finished 


His  Third  Chronometer.  93 

in  1739.  It  was  more  simple  in  its  arrangement,  and 
less  cumbrous  in  its  dimensions.  It  answered  even 
better  than  the  first,  and  though  it  was  not  tried  at 
sea,  its  motions  were  sufficiently  exact  for  finding  the 
longitude  within  the  nearest  limits  proposed  by  act  of 
Parliament. 

Not  satisfied  with  his  two  machines,  Harrison  pro- 
ceeded to  make  a  third.  This  was  of  an  improved 
construction,  and  occupied  still  less  space,  the  whole 
of  the  machine  and  its  apparatus  standing  upon  an  area 
of  only  four  square  feet.  It  was  in  such  forwardness 
in  January,  1741,  that  it  was  exhibited  before  the 
Royal  Society,  and  twelve  of  the  most  prominent 
members  signed  a  certificate  of  "its  great  and  excel- 
lent use,  as  well  for  determining  the  longitude  at  sea 
as  for  correcting  the  charts  of  the  coasts."  The  testi- 
monial concluded:  "We  do  recommend  Mr.  Harrison 
to  the  favor  of  the  commissioners  appointed  by  act  of 
Parliament  as  a  person  highly  deserving  of  such  fur- 
ther encouragement  and  assistance  as  they  shall  judge 
proper  and  sufficient  to  finish  his  third  machine."  The 
commissioners  granted  him  a  further  sum  of  £500. 
Harrison  was  already  reduced  to  necessitous  circum- 
stances by  his  continuous  application  to  the  improve- 
ment of  the  timekeepers.  He  had  also  got  into  debt, 
and  required  further  assistance  to  enable  him  to  pro- 
ceed with  their  construction;  but  the  commissioners 
would  only  help  him  by  driblets. 

Although  Harrison  had  promised  that  the  third  ma- 
chine would  be  ready  for  trial  on  August  1,  1743,  it 
was  not  finished  for  some  years  after.  In  June,  1746, 
we  find  him  again  appearing  before  the  board,  asking 
for  further  assistance.  While  proceeding  with  his 
work,  he  found  it  necessary  to  add  a  new  spring, 
"having  spent  much  time  and  thought  in  tempering 
them."     Another  £500  was  voted  to  enable  him  to 


94:  John  Harrison. 


pay  his  debts,  to  maintain  himself  and  family,  and  to 
complete  his  chronometer. 

Three  years  later  he  exhibited  his  third  machine  to 
the  Royal  Society,  and  on  the  30th  of  November,  1749, 
he  was  awarded  the  gold  medal  for  the  year.  In  pre- 
senting it,  Mr.  Folkes,  the  president,  said  to  Mr.  Har- 
rison, "  I  do  here,  by  the  authority  and  in  the  name  of 
the  Royal  Society  of  London  for  the  improving  of  nat- 
ural knowledge,  present  you  with  this  small  but  faith- 
ful token  of  their  regard  and  esteem.  I  do,  in  their 
name,  congratulate  you  upon  the  successes  you  have  al- 
ready had,  and  I  most  sincerely  wish  that  all  your  fut- 
ure trials  may  in  every  way  prove  answerable  to  these 
beginnings,  and  that  the  full  accomplishment  of  your 
great  undertaking  may  at  last  be  crowned  with  all  the 
reputation  and  advantage  to  yourself  that  your  warm- 
est wishes  may  suggest,  and  to  which  so  many  years 
so  laudably  and  so  diligently  spent  in  the  improvement 
of  those  talents  which  God  Almighty  has  bestowed 
upon  you  will  so  justly  entitle  your  constant  and  un- 
wearied perseverance." 

Mr.  Folkes,  in  his  speech,  spoke  of  Mr.  Harrison  as 
"  one  of  the  most  modest  persons  he  had  ever  known. 
In  speaking,"  he  continued,  "  of  his  own  performances, 
he  has  assured  me  that,  from  the  immense  number  of 
diligent  and  accurate  experiments  he  has  made,  and 
from  the  severe  tests  to  which  he  has  in  many  ways 
put  his  instrument,  he  expects  he  shall  be  able  with 
sufficient  certainty,  through  all  the  greatest  variety  of 
seasons  and  the  most  irregular  motions  of  the  sea, 
to  keep  time  constantly,  without  the  variation  of  so 
much  as  three  seconds  hi  a  iceek,  a  degree  of  exactness 
that  is  astonishing  and  even  stupendous,  considering 
the  immense  number  of  difficulties,  and  those  of  very 
different  sorts,  which  the  author  of  these  inventions 
must  have  had  to  encounter  and  struggle  withal." 


His  Fourth  Chronometer.  95 

Although  it  is  common  enough  now  to  make  first- 
rate  chronometers — sufficient  to  determine  the  longi- 
tude with  almost  perfect  accuracy  in  every  clime  of 
the  world — it  was  very  different  at  that  time,  when 
Harrison  was  occupied  with  his  laborious  experiments. 
Although  he  considered  his  third  machine  to  be  the 
ne  plus  ultra  of  scientific  mechanism,  he  nevertheless 
proceeded  to  construct  a  fourth  timepiece,  in  the  form 
of  a  pocket  watch  about  five  inches  in  diameter.  He 
found  the  principles  which  he  had  adopted  in  his  larger 
machines  applied  equally  well  in  the  smaller,  and  the 
performances  of  the  last  surpassed  his  utmost  expecta- 
tions. But  in  the  meantime,  as  his  third  timekeeper 
was,  in  his  opinion,  sufficient  to  supply  the  require- 
ments of  the  Board  of  Longitude  as  respected  the 
highest  reward  offered,  he  applied  to  the  commission- 
ers for  leave  to  try  that  instrument  on  board  a  royal 
ship  to  some  port  in  the  West  Indies,  as  directed  by 
the  statute  of  Queen  Anne. 

Though  Harrison's  third  timekeeper  was  finished 
about  the  year  1758,  it  was  not  until  March  12,  1761, 
that  he  received  orders  for  his  son  William  to  proceed 
to  Portsmouth,  and  go  on  board  the  Dorsetshire  man- 
of-war,  to  proceed  to  Jamaica.  But  another  tedious 
delay  occurred.  The  ship  was  ordered  elsewhere,  and 
William  Harrison,  after  remaining  five  months  at 
Portsmouth,  returned  to  London.  By  this  time  John 
Harrison  had  finished  his  fourth  timepiece — the  small 
one,  in  the  form  of  a  watch.  At  length  William  Har- 
rison set  sail  with  this  timekeeper  from  Portsmouth 
for  Jamaica,  on  November  18th,  1761,  in  the  Deptford 
man-of-war.  The  Deptford  had  forty-three  ships  in 
convoy,  and  arrived  at  Jamaica  on  the  19th  of  Janu- 
ary, 1762,  three  days  before  the  Beaver,  another  of  his 
majesty's  ships-of-war,  which  had  sailed  from  Ports- 
mouth ten  days  before  the  Deptford,  but  had  lost  her 


96  John  Harrison. 


reckoning  and  been  deceived  in  her  longitude,  having 
trusted  entirely  to  the  log.  Harrison's  timepiece  had 
corrected  the  log  of  the  Deptford  to  the  extent  of  three 
degrees  of  longitude,  while  several  of  the  ships  in  the 
fleet  lost  as  much  as  five  degrees !  This  shows  the 
haphazard  way  in  which  navigation  was  conducted 
previous  to  the  invention  of  the  marine  chronometer. 

When  the  Deptford  arrived  at  Port  Royal,  Jamaica, 
the  timekeeper  was  found  to  be  only  five  and  one- 
tenth  seconds  in  error ;  and  during  the  voyage  of  four 
months,  on  its  return  to  Portsmouth  on  March  26th, 
1762,  it  was  found  (after  allowing  for  the  rate  of  gain 
or  loss)  to  have  erred  only  one  minute  fifty-four  and  a 
half  seconds.  In  the  latitude  of  Portsmouth  this  only 
amounted  to  eighteen  geographical  miles,  whereas  the 
act  had  awarded  that  the  prize  should  be  given  where 
the  longitude  was  determined  within  the  distance  of 
thirty  geographical  miles.  One  would  have  thought 
that  Harrison  was  now  clearly  entitled  to  his  reward 
of  £20,000. 

Not  at  all !  The  delays  interposed  by  government 
are  long  and  tedious,  and  sometimes  insufferable.  Har- 
rison had  accomplished  more  than  was  needful  to  ob- 
tain the  highest  reward  which  the  Board  of  Longitude 
had  publicly  offered.  But  they  would  not  certify  that 
he  had  won  the  prize.  On  the  contrary,  they  started 
numerous  objections,  and  continued  for  years  to  sub- 
ject him  to  vexatious  delays  and  disappointments. 
They  pleaded  that  the  previous  determination  of  the 
longitude  of  Jamaica  by  astronomical  observation  was 
unsatisfactory;  that  there  was  no  proof  of  the  chro- 
nometer having  maintained  a  uniform  rate  during  the 
voyage ;  and  on  the  17th  of  August,  1762,  they  passed 
a  resolution  stating  that  they  "were  of  opinion  that 
the  experiments  made  of  the  watch  had  not  been  suffi- 
cient to  determine  the  longitude  at  sea." 


Delays  in  Awarding  the  Prize.  97 

It  was  accordingly  necessary  for  Harrison  to  petition 
Parliament  on  the  subject.  Three  reigns  had  come 
and  gone  since  the  act  of  Parliament  offering  the  re- 
ward had  been  passed.  Anne  had  died;  George  I.  and 
George  II.  had  reigned  and  died  ;  and  now,  in  the 
reign  of  George  III. — thirty-Jive  years  after  Harrison 
had  begun  his  labors,  and  after  he  had  constructed 
four  several  marine  chronometers,  each  of  which  was 
entitled  to  win  the  full  prize — an  act  of  Parliament 
was  passed  enabling  the  inventor  to  obtain  the  sum  of 
£5000  as  part  of  the  reward.  But  the  commissioners 
still  hesitated.  They  differed  about  the  tempering  of 
the  springs.  They  must  have  another  trial  of  the  time- 
keeper, or  anything  with  which  to  put  off  a  settlement 
of  the  claim.  Harrison  was  ready  for  any  further 
number  of  trials,  and  in  the  meantime  the  commission- 
ers merely  paid  him  a  further  sum  on  account. 

Two  more  dreary  years  passed.  Nothing  was  done 
in  1763  except  a  quantity  of  interminable  talk  at  the 
Board  of  Commissioners.  At  length,  on  the  28th  of 
March,  1764,  Harrison's  son  again  departed  with  the 
timekeeper  on  board  the  ship  Tartar  for  Barbadoes. 
He  returned  in  about  four  months,  during  which  time 
the  instrument  enabled  the  longitude  to  be  ascertained 
within  ten  miles,  or  one  third  of  the  required  geo- 
graphical distance.  Harrison  memorialized  the  com- 
missioners again  and  again,  in  order  that  he  might  ob- 
tain the  reward  publicly  offered  by  the  government. 

At  length  the  commissioners  could  no  longer  conceal 
the  truth.  In  September,  1764,  they  virtually  recog- 
nized Harrison's  claim  by  paying  him  £1000  on  ac- 
count; and,  on  the  9th  of  February,  1765,  they  passed 
a  resolution  setting  forth  that  they  were  "  unanimous- 
ly of  opinion  that  the  said  timekeeper  has  kept  its  time 
with  sufficient  correctness,  without  losing  its  longitude 
in  the  voyage  from  Portsmouth  to  Barbadoes  beyond 


98  John  Harrison. 


the  nearest  limit  required  by  the  act  12th  of  Queen 
Anne,  but  even  considerably  within  the  same."  Yet 
they  would  not  give  Harrison  the  necessary  certificate, 
though  they  were  of  opinion  that  he  was  entitled  to 
be  paid  the  full  reward ! 

It  is  pleasant  to  contrast  the  generous  conduct  of 
the  King  of  Sardinia  with  the  procrastinating  and  illib- 
eral spirit  which  Harrison  met  with  in  his  own  coun- 
try. During  the  same  year  in  which  the  above  reso- 
lution was  passed,  the  Sardinian  minister  ordered  four 
of  Harrison's  timekeepers  at  the  price  of  £1000  each, 
at  the  special  instance  of  the  King  of  Sardinia,  "  as  an 
acknowledgment  of  Mr.  Harrison's  ingenuity,  and  as 
some  recompense  for  the  time  spent  by  him  for  the 
general  good  of  mankind."  This  grateful  attention 
was  all  the  more  praiseworthy,  as  his  Sardinian  majesty 
could  not  in  any  way  be  regarded  as  a  great  maritime 
power. 

Harrison  was  now  becoming  old  and  feeble.  He 
had  attained  the  age  of  seventy-four.  He  had  spent 
forty  long  years  in  working  out  his  invention.  He 
was  losing  his  eyesight,  and  could  not  afford  to  wait 
much  longer.     Still  he  had  to  wait. 

"  Full  little  knowest  thou  who  hast  not  tried, 
What  hell  it  is  in  suing  long  to  bide ; 
To  lose  good  days,  that  might  be  better  spent; 
To  waste  long  nights  in  pensive  discontent ; 
To  spend  to-day,  to  be  put  back  to-morrow, 
To  feed  on  hope,  to  pine  with  fear  and  sorrow." 

But  Harrison  had  not  lost  his  spirit.  On  May  30th, 
1765,  he  addressed  another  remonstrance  to  the  board, 
containing  much  stronger  language  than  he  had  yet 
used.  "I  cannot  help  thinking,"  he  said,  "that  I  am 
extremely  ill-used  by  gentlemen  from  whom  I  might 
have  expected  a  different  treatment;  for,  if  the  act  of 
the  12th  of  Queen  Anne  be  deficient,  why  have  I  so 


Harrison's  Expostulation.  99 

long  been  encouraged  under  it,  in  order  to  bring  my 
invention  to  perfection  ?  And,  after  the  completion, 
why  was  my  son  sent  twice  to  the  West  Indies  ?  Had 
it  been  said  to  my  son,  when  he  received  the  last  in- 
struction, 'There  will,  in  case  you  succeed,  be  a  new 
act  on  your  return,  in  order  to  lay  you  under  new  re- 
strictions, which  were  not  thought  of  in  the  act  of  the 
12th  of  Queen  Anne' — I  say,  had  this  been  the  case,  I 
might  have  expected  some  such  treatment  as  that  I 
now  meet  with. 

"  It  must  be  owned  that  my  case  is  very  hard ;  but 
I  hope  I  am  the  first,  and,  for  my  country's  sake,  I  hope 
I  shall  be  the  last,  to  suffer  by  pinning  my  faith  upon 
an  English  act  of  Parliament.  Had  I  received  my  just 
reward — for  certainly  it  may  be  so  called  after  forty 
years'  close  application  of  the  talent  which  it  has 
pleased  God  to  give  me — then  my  invention  would 
ha,ve  taken  the  course  which  all  improvements  in  this 
world  do  ;  that  is,  I  must  have  instructed  workmen  in 
its  principles  and  execution,  which  I  should  have  been 
glad  of  an  opportunity  of  doing.  But  how  widely  dif- 
ferent this  is  from  what  is  now  proposed,  viz.,  for  me 
to  instruct  people  that  I  know  nothing  of,  and  such  as 
may  know  nothing  of  mechanics  ;  and,  if  I  do  not 
make  them  understand  to  their  satisfaction,  I  may  then 
have  nothing  ! 

"  Hard  fate,  indeed,  to  me,  but  still  harder  to  the 
world,  which  may  be  deprived  of  this  my  invention, 
which  must  be  the  case,  except  by  my  open  and  free 
manner  in  describing  all  the  principles  of  it  to  gentle- 
men and  noblemen  who  almost  at  all  times  have  had 
free  recourse  to  my  instruments.  And  if  any  of  these 
workmen  have  been  so  ingenious  as  to  have  got  my 
invention,  how  far  you  may  please  to  reward  them  for 
their  piracy  must  be  left  for  you  to  determine ;  and  I 
must  set  myself  down  in  old  age,  and  thank  God  I  can 


100  John  Harrison. 


be  more  easy  in  that  I  have  the  conquest,  and  though 
I  have  no  reward,  than  if  I  had  come  short  of  the  mat- 
ter and  by  some  delusion  had  the  reward  !" 

The  right  honorable  the  Earl  of  Egmont  was  in  the 
chair  of  the  Board  of  Longitude  on  the  day  when  this 
letter  was  read — June  13,  1765.  The  commissioners 
were  somewhat  startled  by  the  tone  which  the  invent- 
or had  taken.  Indeed,  they  were  rather  angry.  Mr. 
Harrison,  who  was  in  waiting,  was  called  in.  After 
some  rather  hot  speaking,  and  after  a  proposal  was 
made  to  Harrison  which  he  said  he  would  decline  to 
accede  to  "  so  long  as  a  drop  of  English  blood  remained 
in  his  body,"  he  left  the  room.  Matters  were  at  length 
arranged.  The  act  of  Parliament  (5  Geo.  III.  cap.  20) 
awarded  him,  upon  a  full  discovery  of  the  principles  of 
his  timekeeper,  the  payment  of  such  a  sum,  as,  with 
the  £2500  he  had  already  received,  would  make  one 
half  of  the  reward;  and  the  remaining  half  was  to  be 
paid  when  other  chronometers  had  been  made  after  his 
design,  and  their  capabilities  fully  proved.  He  was 
also  required  to  assign  his  four  chronometers — one  of 
which  was  styled  a  watch — to  the  use  of  the  public. 

Harrison  at  once  proceeded  to  give  a  full  explanation 
of  the  principles  of  his  chronometer  to  Dr.  Maskelyne 
and  six  other  gentlemen,  who  had  been  appointed  to 
receive  them.  He  took  his  timekeeper  to  pieces  in  their 
presence,  and  deposited  in  their  hands  correct  drawings 
of  the  same,  with  the  parts,  so  that  other  skilful  makers 
might  construct  similar  chronometers  on  the  same 
principles.  Indeed,  there  was  no  difficulty  in  making 
them,  after  his  explanations  and  drawings  had  been 
published.  An  exact  copy  of  his  last  watch  was  made 
by  the  ingenious  Mr.  Kendal,  and  was  used  by  Captain 
Cook  in  his  three  years'  circumnavigation  of  the  world, 
to  his  perfect  satisfaction. 

England  had  already  inaugurated  that  series  of  sci- 


Captain  Cook's  Voyages.  101 

entific  expeditions  which  were  to  prove  so  fruitful  of 
results,  and  to  raise  her  naval  reputation  to  so  great  a 
height.  In  these  expeditions,  the  officers,  the  sailors, 
and  the  scientific  men  were  constantly  brought  face  to 
face  with  unforeseen  difficulties  and  dangers,  which 
brought  forth  their  highest  qualities  as  men.  There 
was,  however,  some  intermixture  of  narrowness  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  sent  them  forth.  For  instance, 
while  Dr.  Priestley  was  at  Leeds,  he  was  asked  by  Sir 
Joseph  Banks  to  join  Captain  Cook's  second  expedition 
to  the  southern  seas,  as  an  astronomer.  Priestley  gave 
his  assent,  and  made  arrangements  to  set  out.  But 
some  weeks  later,  Banks  informed  him  that  his  appoint- 
ment had  been  cancelled,  as  the  Board  of  Longitude 
objected  to  his  theology.  Priestley's  otherwise  gentle 
nature  was  roused.  "  What  I  am,  and  what  they  are, 
in  respect  to  religion,"  he  wrote  to  Banks,  in  Decem- 
ber, 1771,  "might  easily  have  been  known  before  the 
thing  was  proposed  to  me  at  all.  Besides,  I  thought 
that  this  had  been  a  business  of  philosophy,  and  not 
of  divinity.  If,  however,  this  be  the  case,  I  shall  hold 
the  Board  of  Longitude  in  extreme  contempt." 

Captain  Cook  was  appointed  to  the  command  of  the 
Resolution,  and  Captain  Wallis  to  the  command  of  the 
Adventure,  in  November,  1771.  They  proceeded  to 
equip  the  ships  ;  and  among  the  other  instruments 
taken  on  board  Captain  Cook's  ship  were  two  time- 
keepers, one  made  by  Mr.  Larcum  Kendal,  on  Mr.  Har- 
rison's principles,  and  the  other  by  Mr.  John  Arnold, 
on  his  own.  The  expedition  left  Deptford  in  April, 
1772,  and  shortly  afterwards  sailed  for  the  south  seas. 
"Mr.  Kendal's  watch"  is  the  subject  of  frequent  no- 
tices in  Captain  Cook's  account.  At  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  it  is  said  to  have  "answered  beyond  all  expecta- 
tion." Further  south,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Cape 
Circumcision,  he  says,  "the  use  of  the  telescope  is 


102  John  Harrison. 


found  difficult  at  first,  but  a  little  practice  will  make  it 
familiar.  By  the  assistance  of  the  watch  we  shall  be 
able  to  discover  the  greatest  error  this  method  of  ob- 
serving the  longitude  at  sea  is  liable  to."  It  was  found 
that  Harrison's  watch  was  more  correct  than  Arnold's, 
and  when  near  Cape  Palliser,  in  New  Zealand,  Cook 
says, "  This  day  at  noon,  when  we  attended  the  winding- 
up  of  the  watches,  the  fusee  of  Mr.  Arnold's  would  not 
turn  round,  so  that,  after  several  unsuccessful  trials,  we 
were  obliged  to  let  it  go  down."  From  this  time  com- 
plete reliance  was  placed  upon  Harrison's  chronometer. 
Some  time  later,  Cook  says,  "I  must  here  take  notice 
that  our  longitude  can  never  be  erroneous  while  we 
have  so  good  a  guide  as  Mr.  Kendal's  watch."  It  may 
be  observed  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  voyage  ob- 
servations were  made  by  the  lunar  tables  ;  but  these, 
being  found  unreliable,  were  eventually  discontinued. 

To  return  to  Harrison.  He  continued  to  be  worried 
by  official  opposition.  His  claims  were  still  unsatisfied. 
His  watch  at  home  underwent  many  more  trials.  Dr. 
Maskelyne,  the  royal  astronomer,  was  charged  with 
being  unfavorable  to  the  success  of  chronometers,  be- 
ing deeply  interested  in  finding  the  longitude  by  lunar 
tables  ;  although  this  method  is  now  almost  entirely 
superseded  by  the  chronometer.  Harrison  accordingly 
could  not  get  the  certificate  of  what  was  due  to  him 
under  the  act  of  Parliament.  Years  passed  before  he 
could  obtain  the  remaining  amount  of  his  reward.  It 
was  not  until  the  year  1773,  or  forty -Jive  years  after  the 
commencement  of  his  experiments,  that  he  succeeded  in 
obtaining  it.  The  following  is  an  entry  in  the  list  of 
supplies  granted  by  Parliament  in  that  year:  "June 
14.  To  John  Harrison,  as  a  further  reward  and  en- 
couragement over  and  above  the  sums  already  received 
by  him,  for  his  invention  of  a  timekeeper  for  ascertain- 
ing the  longitude  at  sea,  and  his  discovery  of  the  prin- 


Final  Settlement  of  his  Claim.  103 

ciples  upon  which  the  same  was  constructed,  £8570  05. 
Od." 

John  Harrison  did  not  long  survive  the  settlement 
of  his  claims,  for  he  died  on  the  24th  of  March,  1776, 
at  the  age  of  eighty-three.  He  was  buried  at  the 
southwest  corner  of  Hampstead  parish  churchyard, 
where  a  tombstone  was  erected  to  his  memory,  and  an 
inscription  placed  upon  it  commemorating  his  services. 
His  wife  survived  him  only  a  year;  she  died  at  seventy- 
two,  and  was  buried  in  the  same  tomb.  His  son,  Will- 
iam Harrison,  F.R.S.,  a  deputy-lieutenant  of  the  coun- 
ties of  Monmouth  and  Middlesex,  died  in  1815,  at  the 
ripe  age  of  eighty-eight,  and  was  also  interred  there. 
The  tomb  having  stood  for  more  than  a  century,  be- 
came somewhat  dilapidated,  when  the  Clockmakers' 
Company  of  the  City  of  London  took  steps  in  1879  to 
reconstruct  it,  and  recut  the  inscriptions.  An  appro- 
priate ceremony  took  place  at  the  final  uncovering  of 
the  tomb. 

But  perhaps  the  most  interesting  works  connected 
with  John  Harrison  and  the  great  labor  of  his  life  are 
the  wooden  clock  at  the  South  Kensington  Museum, 
and  the  four  chronometers  made  by  him  for  the  gov- 
ernment, which  are  still  preserved  at  the  Royal  Ob- 
servatory, Greenwich.  The  three  early  ones  are  of 
great  weight,  and  can  scarcely  be  moved  without  some 
bodily  labor.  But  the  fourth,  the  marine  chronometer 
or  watch,  is  of  small  dimensions,  and  is  easily  handled. 
It  still  possesses  the  power  of  going  accurately,  as  does 
"  Mr.  Kendal's  watch,"  which  was  made  exactly  after 
it.  These  will  always  prove  the  best  memorials  of 
this  distinguished  workman. 

Before  concluding  this  brief  notice  of  the  life  and 
labors  of  John  Harrison,  it  becomes  me  to  thank  most 
cordially  Mr.  Christie,  Astronomer  Royal,  for  his  kind- 
ness in  exhibiting  the  various  chronometers  deposited 


104  John  Harrison. 


at  the  Greenwich  Observatory,  and  for  his  permission 
to  inspect  the  minutes  of  the  Board  of  Longitude, 
where  the  various  interviews  between  the  inventor  and 
the  commissioners,  extending  over  many  years,  are 
faithfully  but  too  procrastinatingly  recorded.  It  may 
be  finally  said  of  John  Harrison,  that  by  the  invention 
of  his  chronometer — the  ever-sleepless  and  ever-trusty 
friend  of  the  mariner — he  conferred  an  incalculable 
benefit  on  science  and  navigation,  and  established  his 
claim  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  greatest  benefactors 
of  mankind. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

JOHN  LOMBE, 

INTRODUCER   OF   THE    SILK   INDUSTRY   INTO   ENGLAND. 

"By  Commerce  are  acquired  the  two  things  which  wise  men  ac- 
compt  of  all  others  the  most  necessary  to  the  well-being  of  a  Common- 
wealth :  That  is  to  say,  a  general  Industry  of  Mind  and  Hardiness 
of  Body,  which  never  fail  to  be  accompanyed  with  Honour  and  Plen- 
ty. So  that,  questionless,  when  Commerce  does  not  flourish,  as  well 
as  other  Professions,  and  when  Particular  Persons  out  of  a  habit  of 
Laziness  neglect  at  once  the  noblest  way  of  employing  their  time 
and  the  fairest  occasion  for  advancing  their  fortunes,  that  King- 
dom, though  otherwise  never  so  glorious,  wants  something  of  being 
compleatly  happy."  —  A  Treatise  Touching  the  East  India  Trade 
(1695). 

Industry  puts  an  entirely  new  face  upon  the  pro- 
ductions of  nature.  By  labor  man  has  subjugated  the 
world,  reduced  it  to  his  dominion,  and  clothed  the 
earth  with  a  new  garment.  The  first  rude  plough 
that  man  thrust  into  the  soil,  the  first  rude  axe  of 
stone  with  which  he  felled  its  pine,  the  first  rude  ca- 
noe, scooped  by  him  from  its  trunk  to  cross  the  river 
and  reach  the  greener  fields  beyond,  were  each  the 
outcome  of  a  human  faculty  which  brought  within  his 
reach  some  physical  comfort  he  had  never  enjoyed  be- 
fore. 

Material  things  became  subject  to  the  influence  of 
labor.  From  the  clay  of  the  ground  man  manufac- 
tured the  vessels  which  were  to  contain  his  food.  Out 
of  the  fleecy  covering  of  sheep  he  made  clothes  for 
himself  of  many  kinds;  from  the  flax-plant  he  drew  its 

5* 


106  John  Lombe. 


fibres,  and  made  linen  and  cambric;  from  the  hemp- 
plant  he  made  ropes  and  fishing-nets;  from  the  cot- 
ton-pod he  fabricated  fustians,  dimities,  and  calicoes. 
From  the  rags  of  these,  or  from  weed  and  the  shav- 
ings of  wood,  he  made  paper,  on  which  books  and 
newspapers  were  printed.  Lead  was  formed  by  him 
into  printer's  type,  for  the  communication  of  knowl- 
edge without  end. 

But  the  most  extraordinary  changes  of  all  were  made 
in  a  heavy  stone  containing  metal,  dug  out  of  the 
ground.  With  this,  when  smelted  by  wood  or  coal, 
and  manipulated  by  experienced  skill,  iron  was  pro- 
duced. From  this  extraordinary  metal,  the  soul  of 
every  manufacture,  and  the  mainspring  perhaps  of 
civilized  society,  arms,  hammers,  and  axes  were  made; 
then  knives,  scissors,  and  needles;  then  machinery  to 
hold  and  control  the  prodigious  force  of  steam;  and, 
eventually,  railroads  and  locomotives,  ironclads  pro- 
pelled by  the  screw,  and  iron  and  steel  bridges  miles 
in  length. 

The  silk  manufacture,  though  originating  in  the  se- 
cretion of  a  tiny  caterpillar,  is  perhaps  equally  extraor- 
dinary. Hundreds  of  thousands  of  pounds'  weight 
of  this  slender  thread,  no  thicker  than  the  filaments 
spun  by  a  spider,  give  employment  to  millions  of  work- 
ers throughout  the  world.  Silk,  and  the  many  text- 
ures wrought  from  this  beautiful  material,  had  long 
been  known  in  the  East;  but  the  period  cannot  be  fixed 
when  man  first  divested  the  chrysalis  of  its  dwelling, 
and  discovered  that  the  little  yellow  ball  which  adhered 
to  the  leaf  of  the  mulberry-tree  could  be  evolved  into 
a  slender  filament,  from  which  tissues  of  endless  vari- 
ety and  beauty  could  be  made.  The  Chinese  were, 
doubtless,  among  the  first  who  used  the  thread  spun 
by  the  silkworm  for  the  purposes  of  clothing.  The 
manufacture  went  westward  from  China  to  India  and 


The  Silk  Industry.  107 

Persia,  and  from  thence  to  Europe.  Alexander  the 
Great  brought  home  with  him  a  store  of  rich  silks 
from  Persia. 

Aristotle  and  Pliny  give  descriptions  of  the  indus- 
trious little  worm  and  its  productions.  Virgil  is  the 
first  of  the  Roman  writers  who  alludes  to  the  produc- 
tion of  silk  in  China,  and  the  terms  he  employs  show 
how  little  was  then  known  about  the  article.  It  was 
introduced  at  Rome  about  the  time  of  Julius  Caesar, 
who  displayed  a  profusion  of  s'ilks  in  some  of  his  mag- 
nificent theatrical  spectacles.  Silk  was  so  valuable 
that  it  was  then  sold  for  an  equal  weight  of  gold.  In- 
deed, a  law  was  passed  that  no  man  should  disgrace 
himself  by  wearing  a  silken  garment.  The  emperor 
Heliogabalus  despised  the  law,  and  wore  a  dress  com- 
posed wholly  of  silk.  The  example  thus  set  was  soon 
followed  by  the  wealthy  citizens.  A  demand  for  silk 
from  the  East  soon  became  general. 

It  was  not  until  about  the  middle  of  the  sixth  centu- 
ry that  two  Persian  monks,  who  had  long  resided  in 
China,  and  made  themselves  acquainted  with  the  mode 
of  rearing  the  silkworm,  succeeded  in  carrying  the  eggs 
of  the  insect  to  Constantinople.  Under  their  direction 
they  were  hatched  and  fed.  A  sufficient  number  of 
butterflies  were  saved  to  propagate  the  race,  and  mul- 
berry-trees were  planted  to  afford  nourishment  to  the 
rising  generation  of  caterpillars.  Thus  the  industry 
was  propagated.  It  spread  into  the  Italian  peninsula; 
and  eventually  manufactures  of  silk  velvet,  damask, 
and  satin  became  established  in  Venice,  Milan,  Flor- 
ence, Lucca,  and  other  places. 

Indeed,  for  several  centuries  the  manufacture  of  silk 
in  Europe  was  for  the  most  part  confined  to  Italy. 
The  rearing  of  silkworms  was  of  great  importance 
in  Modena,  and  yielded  a  considerable  revenue  to  the 
state.     The  silk  produced  there  was  esteemed  the  best 


108  John  Lombe. 


in  Lombardy.  Until  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  Bologna  was  the  only  city  which  possessed 
proper  "throwing"  mills,  or  the  machinery  requisite 
for  twisting  and  preparing  silken  fibres  for  the  weaver. 
Thousands  of  people  were  employed  at  Florence  and 
Genoa  about  the  same  time  in  the  silk  manufacture. 
And  at  Venice  it  was  held  in  such  high  esteem  that 
the  business  of  a  silk-factory  was  considered  a  noble 
employment.* 

It  was  long  before  the  use  of  silk  became  general  in 
England.  "Silk,"  said  an  old  writer,  " does  not  im- 
mediately come  hither  from  the  Worm  that  spins  and 
makes  it,  but  passes  many  a  Climate,  travels  many  a 
Desert,  employs  many  a  Hand,  loads  many  a  Camel, 
and  freights  many  a  Ship  before  it  arrives  here;  and 
when  at  last  it  comes,  it  is  in  return  for  other  manu- 
factures, or  in  exchange  for  our  money."  f  It  is  said 
that  the  first  pair  of  silk  stockings  was  brought  into 
England  from  Spain,  and  presented  to  Henry  VIII. 
He  had  before  worn  hose  of  cloth.  In  the  third  year 
of  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign  her  tiring  woman,  Mrs. 
Montagu,  presented  her  with  a  pair  of  black  silk 
stockings  as  a  New  Year's  gift;  whereupon  her  majes- 
ty asked  if  she  could  have  any  more,  in  which  case  she 
would  wear  no  more  cloth  stockings.     When  James 

*  "  This  was  equally  the  case  with  two  other  trades,  those  of  glass- 
maker  and  druggist,  which  brought  no  contamination  upon  nobility  in 
Venice.  In  a  country  where  wealth  was  concentrated  in  the  hands 
of  the  powerful,  it  was  no  doubt  highly  judicious  thus  to  encourage 
its  employment  for  objects  of  public  advantage.  A  feeling,  more  or 
less  powerful,  has  always  existed  in  the  minds  of  the  high-born  against 
the  employment  of  their  time  and  wealth  to  purposes  of  commerce  or 
manufactures.  All  trades,  save  only  that  of  war,  seem  to  have  been 
held  by  them  as  in  some  sort  degrading,  and  but  little  comporting 
with  the  dignity  of  aristocratic  blood." — Cabinet  Cyclopedia,  "Silk 
Manufacture,"  p.  20. 

t  "  A  Brief  State  of  the  Inland  or  Home  Trade"  (pamphlet),  1730. 


The  Silk  Manufacture.  109 

VI.  of  Scotland  received  the  ambassadors  sent  to  con- 
gratulate him  upon  his  accession  to  the  throne  of  Great 
Britain,  he  asked  one  of  his  lords  to  lend  him  his  pair 
of  silken  hose,  that  he  "might  not  appear  a  scrub  be- 
fore strangers."  From  these  circumstances,  it  will  be 
observed  how  rare  the  wearing  of  silk  was  in  England. 

Shortly  after  becoming  king,  James  I.  endeavored 
to  establish  the  silk  manufacture  in  England,  as  had 
already  been  successfully  done  in  France.  He  gave 
every  encouragement  to  the  breeding  of  silkworms. 
He  sent  circular  letters  to  all  the  counties  of  England, 
strongly  recommending  the  inhabitants  to  plant  mul- 
berry-trees. The  trees  were  planted  in  many  places, 
but  the  leaves  did  not  ripen  in  sufficient  time  for  the 
sustenance  of  the  silkworms.  The  same  attempt  was 
made  at  Inneshannon,  near  Bandon,  in  Ireland,  by  the 
Huguenot  refugees,  but  proved  abortive.  The  cli- 
mate proved  too  cold  or  damp  for  the  rearing  of  silk- 
worms with  advantage.  All  that  remains  is  "The 
Mulberry  Field,"  which  still  retains  its  name.  Nev- 
ertheless, the  Huguenots  successfully  established  the 
silk  manufacture  at  London  and  Dublin,  obtaining  the 
spun  silk  from  abroad. 

Down  to  the  beginning  of  last  century,  the  Italians 
were  the  principal  producers  of  organzine,  or  thrown 
silk;  and  for  a  long  time  they  succeeded  in  keeping 
their  art  a  secret.  Although  the  silk  manufacture,  as 
we  have  seen,  was  introduced  into  this  country  by  the 
Huguenot  artisans,  the  price  of  thrown  silk  was  so 
great  that  it  interfered  very  considerably  with  its  prog- 
ress. Organzine  was  principally  made  within  the  do- 
minions of  Savoy,  by  means  of  a  large  and  curious 
engine,  the  like  of  which  did  not  exist  elsewhere.  The 
Italians,  by  the  most  severe  laws,  long  preserved  the 
mystery  of  the  invention.  The  punishment  prescribed 
by  one  of  their  laws  to  be  inflicted  upon  any  one  who 


110  John  Lorribe. 


discovered  the  secret,  or  attempted  to  carry  it  out  of 
the  Sardinian  dominions,  was  death,  with  the  forfeit- 
ure of  all  the  goods  the  delinquent  possessed;  and  the 
culprit  was  "to  be  afterwards  painted  on  the  outside 
of  the  prison  walls,  hanging  to  the  gallows  by  one 
foot,  with  an  inscription  denoting  the  name  and  crime 
of  the  person,  there  to  be  continued  for  a  perpetual 
mark  of  infamy."* 

Nevertheless,  a  bold  and  ingenious  man  was  found 
ready  to  brave  all  this  danger  in  the  endeavor  to  dis- 
cover the  secret.  It  may  be  remembered  with  what 
courage  and  determination  the  founder  of  the  Foley 
family  introduced  the  manufacture  of  nails  into  Eng- 
land. He  went  into  the  Danemora  mine  district,  near 
Upsala,  in  Sweden,  fiddling  his  way  among  the  miners, 
and  after  making  two  voyages,  he  at  last  wrested  from 
them  the  secret  of  making  nails,  and  introduced  the 
new  industry  into  the  Staffordshire  district.!  The 
courage  of  John  Lombe,  who  introduced  the  thrown- 
silk  industry  into  England,  was  equally  notable.  He 
was  a  native  of  Norwich.  Playf air,  in  his  "  Family 
Antiquity"  (vol.  vii.  p.  312),  says  his  name  "may  have 
been  taken  from  the  French  Lolme,  or  de  Lolme,"  as 
there  were  many  persons  of  French  and  Flemish  origin 
settled  at  Norwich  towards  the  close  of  the  sixteenth 
century;  but  there  is  no  further  information  as  to  his 
special  origin. 

John  Lombe's  father,  Henry  Lombe,  was  a  worsted 
weaver,  and  was  twice  married.  By  his  first  wife  he 
had  two  sons,  Thomas  and  Henry;  and  by  his  second 

*  "A  Brief  State  of  the  Case  relating  to  the  Machine  erected  at 
Derby  for  making  Italian  Organzine  Silk,  which  was  discovered  and 
brought  into  England  with  the  utmost  difficulty  and  hazard,  and  at 
the  Sole  Expense  of  Sir  Thomas  Lombe." — House  of  Commons  Pa- 
per, 28th  of  January,  1731. 

t  "Self-Help,"  p.  205. 


Origin  of  the  Lorribes.  Ill 

he  had  also  two  sons,  Benjamin  and  John.  At  his 
death,  in  1695,  he  left  his  two  brothers  his  "super- 
visors," or  trustees,  and  directed  them  to  educate  his 
children  in  due  time  to  some  useful  trade.  Thom- 
as, the  eldest  son,  went  to  London.  He  was  appren- 
ticed to  a  trade,  and  succeeded  in  business,  as  we  find 
him  sheriff  of  London  and  Middlesex  in  1727,  when  in 
his  forty-second  year.  He  was  also  knighted  in  the 
same  year,  most  probably  on  the  accession  of  George 
II.  to  the  throne. 

John,  the  youngest  son  of  the  family,  and  half-broth- 
er of  Thomas,  was  put  an  apprentice  to  a  trade.  In 
1702  we  find  him  at  Derby,  working  as  a  mechanic 
with  one  Mr.  Crotchet.  This  unfortunate  gentleman 
started  a  small  silk-mill  at  Derby,  with  the  object  of 
participating  in  the  profits  derived  from  the  manu- 
facture. "The  wTear  of  silks,"  says  Hutton,  in  his 
"  History  of  Derby,"  "  was  the  taste  of  the  ladies,  and 
the  British  merchant  was  obliged  to  apply  to  the  Ital- 
ian with  ready  money  for  the  article  at  an  exorbitant 
price."  Crotchet  did  not  succeed  in  his  undertaking. 
"  Three  engines  were  found  necessary  for  the  process; 
he  had  but  one.  An  untoward  trade  is  a  dreadful  sink 
for  money,  and  an  imprudent  tradesman  is  still  more 
dreadful.  "We  often  see  instances  where  a  fortune 
would  last  a  man  much  longer  if  he  lived  upon  his 
capital  than  if  he  sent  it  into  trade.  Crotchet  soon 
became  insolvent." 

John  Lombe,  who  had  been  a  mechanic  in  Crotchet's 
silk-mill,  lost  his  situation  accordingly.  But  he  seems 
to  have  been  possessed  by  an  intense  desire  to  ascer- 
tain the  Italian  method  of  silk-throwing.  He  could 
not  learn  it  in  England.  There  was  no  other  method 
but  going  to  Italy,  getting  into  a  silk-mill,  and  learn- 
ing the  secret  of  the  Italian  art.  He  was  a  good  me- 
chanic and  a  clever  draughtsman,  besides  being  intel- 


112  John  Lomhe. 


ligent  and  fearless.  But  lie  had  not  the  necessary- 
money  wherewith  to  proceed  to  Italy.  His  half-broth- 
er Thomas,  however,  was  doing  well  in  London,  and 
was  willing  to  help  him  with  the  requisite  means.  Ac- 
cordingly, John  set  out  for  Italy  not  long  after  the 
failure  of  Crotchet. 

John  Lombe  succeeded  in  getting  employment  in  a 
silk-mill  in  Piedmont,  where  the  art  of  silk-throwing 
was  kept  a  secret.  He  was  employed  as  a  mechanic, 
and  had  thus  an  opportunity,  in  course  of  time,  of  be- 
coming familiar  with  the  operation  of  the  engine. 
Hutton  says  that  he  bribed  the  workmen ;  but  this 
would  have  been  a  dangerous  step,  and  would  proba- 
bly have  led  to  his  expulsion,  if  not  to  his  execution. 
Hutton  had  a  great  detestation  of  the  first  silk-factory 
at  Derby,  where  he  was  employed  when  a  boy,  and  ev- 
erything that  he  says  about  it  must  be  taken  cum  grano 
sails.  When  the  subject  of  renewing  the  patent  was 
before  Parliament,  in  1731,  Mr.  Perry,  who  supported 
the  petition  of  Sir  Thomas  Lombe,  said  that  "  the  art 
had  been  kept  so  secret  in  Piedmont  that  no  other  na- 
tion could  ever  yet  come  at  the  invention,  and  that  Sir 
Thomas  and  his  brother  resolved  to  make  an  attempt 
for  the  bringing  of  this  invention  into  their  own  coun- 
try. They  knew  that  there  would  be  great  difficulty 
and  danger  in  the  undertaking,  because  the  King  of 
Sardinia  had  made  it  death  for  any  man  to  discover 
this  invention,  or  attempt  to  carry  it  out  of  his  domin- 
ions. The  petitioner's  brother,  however,  resolved  to 
venture  his  person  for  the  benefit  and  advantage  of  his 
native  country,  and  Sir  Thomas  was  resolved  to  vent- 
ure his  money,  and  to  furnish  his  brother  with  what- 
ever sums  should  be  necessary  for  executing  so  bold 
and  so  generous  a  design.  His  brother  went,  accord- 
ingly, over  to  Italy,  and,  after  a  long  stay  and  a  great 
expense  in  that  country,  he  found  means  to  see  this 


The  Derby  Silk-mill.  113 

engine  so  often,  and  to  pry  into  the  nature  of  it  so 
narrowly,  that  he  made  himself  master  of  the  whole 
invention,  and  of  all  the  different  parts  and  motions 
belonging  to  it." 

John  Lombe  was  absent  from  England  for  several 
years.  While  occupied  with  his  investigations  and 
making  his  drawings,  it  is  said  that  it  began  to  be  ru- 
mored that  the  Englishman  was  prying  into  the  secret 
of  the  silk-mills,  and  that  he  had  to  fly  for  his  life. 
However  this  may  be,  he  got  on  board  an  English 
ship,  and  returned  to  England  in  safety.  He  brought 
two  Italian  workmen  with  him,  accustomed  to  the  se- 
crets of  the  silk-trade.  He  arrived  in  London  in  1716, 
when,  after  conferring  with  his  brother,  a  specification 
was  prepared,  and  a  patent  for  the  organzining  of  raw 
silk  was  taken  out  in  1718.  The  patent  was  granted 
for  fourteen  years. 

In  the  meantime  John  Lombe  arranged  with  the 
corporation  of  the  town  of  Derby  for  taking  a  lease  of 
the  island,  or  swamp,  on  the  River  Derwent,  at  a  ground 
rental  of  £8  a  year.  The  island,  which  was  well-situ- 
ated for  water-power,  was  five  hundred  feet  long 
and  fifty-two  feet  wide.  Arrangements  were  at  once 
made  for  erecting  a  silk-mill  thereon,  the  first  large 
factory  in  England.  It  was  constructed  entirely  at 
the  expense  of  his  brother  Thomas.  While  the  build- 
ing was  in  progress,  John  Lombe  hired  various  rooms 
in  Derby,  and  particularly  the  Town  Hall,  where  he 
erected  temporary  engines  turned  by  hand,  and  gave 
employment  to  a  large  number  of  poor  people. 

At  length,  after  about  three  years'  labor,  the  great 
silk-mill  was  completed.  It  was  founded  upon  huge 
piles  of  oak,  from  sixteen  to  twenty  feet  long,  driven 
into  the  swamp  close  to  each  other  by  an  engine  made 
for  the  purpose.  The  building  was  five  stories  high, 
contained  eight  large  apartments,  and  had  no  fewer 


114  John  Loiribe. 


than  four  hundred  and  sixty -eight  windows.  The 
Lombes  must  have  had  great  confidence  in  their  spec- 
ulation, as  the  building  and  the  great  engine  for  mak- 
ing the  organzine  silk,  together  with  the  other  fittings, 
cost  them  about  £30,000. 

One  effect  of  the  working  of  the  mill  was  greatly  to 
reduce  the  price  of  the  thrown-silk,  and  to  bring  it 
below  the  cost  of  the  Italian  production.  The  King 
of  Sardinia,  having  heard  of  the  success  of  the  Lombes' 
undertaking,  prohibited  the  exportation  of  Piedmont- 
ese  raw  silk,  which  interrupted  the  course  of  their 
prosperity  until  means  were  taken  to  find  a  renewed 
supply  elsewhere. 

And  now  comes  the  tragic  part  of  the  story,  for 
which  Mr.  Hutton,  the  author  of  the  "  History  of  Der- 
by," is  responsible.  As  he  worked  in  the  silk-mill 
when  a  boy,  from  1730  to  1737,  he  doubtless  heard  it 
from  the  mill-hands,  and  there  may  be  some  truth  in 
it,  though  mixed  with  a  little  romance.  It  is  this: 
Hutton  says  of  John  Lombe,  that  he  "had  not  pursued 
this  lucrative  commerce  more  than  three  or  four  years 
when  the  Italians,  who  felt  the  effects  from  their  want 
of  trade,  determined  his  destruction,  and  hoped  that 
that  of  his  works  would  follow.  An  artful  woman 
came  over  in  the  character  of  a  friend,  associated  with 
the  parties,  and  assisted  in  the  business.  She  attempt- 
ed to  gain  both  the  Italian  workmen,  and  succeeded 
with  one.  By  these  two  slow  poison  was  supposed,  and 
perhaps  justly,  to  have  been  administered  to  John 
Lombe,  who  lingered  two  or  three  years  in  agony, 
and  departed.  The  Italian  ran  away  to  his  own  coun- 
try, and  madam  was  interrogated,  but  nothing  trans- 
pired, except  what  strengthened  suspicion."  A  strange 
story,  if  true. 

Of  the  funeral,  Hutton  says:  "John  Lombe's  was 
the  most  superb  ever  known  in  Derby.     A  man  of 


Death  of  Lombe.  115 


peaceable  deportment,  who  had  brought  a  beneficial 
manufactory  into  the  place,  employed  the  poor,  and  at 
advanced  wages,  could  not  fail  meeting  with  respect, 
and  his  melancholy  end  with  pity.  Exclusive  of  the 
gentlemen  who  attended,  all  the  people  concerned  in 
the  works  were  invited.  The  procession  marched  in 
pairs,  and  extended  the  length  of  Full  Street,  the  mar- 
ket-place, and  Iron-gate;  so  that  when  the  corpse  en- 
tered All -Saints,  at  St.  Mary's  Gate,  the  last  couple 
left  the  house  of  the  deceased,  at  the  corner  of  Silk- 
mill  Lane." 

Thus  John  Lombe  died  and  was  buried  at  the  early 
age  of  twenty-nine,  and  Thomas,  the  capitalist,  con- 
tinued the  owner  of  the  Derby  silk-mill.  Hutton  erro- 
neously states  that  William  succeeded,  and  that  he  shot 
himself.  The  Lombes  had  no  brother  of  the  name  of 
William,  and  this  part  of  Hutton's  story  is  a  romance. 

The  affairs  of  the  Derby  silk-mill  went  on  prosper- 
ously. Enough  thrown-silk  was  manufactured  to  sup- 
ply the  trade,  and  the  weaving  of  silk  became  a  thriv- 
ing business.  Indeed,  English  silk  began  to  have  a 
European  reputation.  In  olden  times  it  was  said  that 
"  the  stranger  buys  of  the  Englishman  the  case  of  the 
fox  for  a  groat,  and  sells  him  the  tail  again  for  a  shil- 
ling." But  now  the  matter  was  reversed,  and  the  say- 
ing was,  "The  Englishman  buys  silk  of  the  stranger 
for  twenty  marks,  and  sells  him  the  same  again  for 
one  hundred  pounds." 

But  the  patent  was  about  to  expire.  It  had  been 
granted  for  only  fourteen  years,  and  a  long  time  had 
elapsed  before  the  engine  could  be  put  in  oj)eration, 
and  the  organzine  manufactured.  It  was  the  only 
engine  in  the  kingdom.  Joshua  Gee,  writing  in  1731, 
says:  "  As  we  have  but  one  Water  Engine  in  the  king- 
dom for  throwing  silk,  if  that  should  be  destroyed  by 
fire  or  any  other  accident,  it  would  make  the  continu- 


116  John  Lorribe. 


ance  of  throwing  fine  silk  very  precarious;  and  it  is 
very  much  to  be  doubted  whether  all  the  men  now 
living  in  the  kingdom  could  make  another."  Gee  ac- 
cordingly recommended  that  three  or  four  more  should 
be  erected  at  the  public  expense,  "according  to  the 
model  of  that  at  Derby."  * 

The  patent  expired  in  1*732.  The  year  before,  Sir 
Thomas  Lombe,  who  had  been  by  this  time  knighted, 
applied  to  Parliament  for  a  prolongation  of  the  patent. 
The  reasons  for  his  appeal  were  principally  these:  that 
before  he  could  provide  for  the  full  supply  of  other 
silk  for  his  purpose  (the  Italians  having  prohibited  the 
exportation  of  raw  silk),  and  before  he  could  alter  his 
engine,  train  up  a  sufficient  number  of  work-people,  and 
bring  the  manufacture  to  perfection,  almost  all  the 
fourteen  years  of  his  patent  right  would  have  expired. 
"Therefore,"  the  petition  to  Parliament  concluded, 
"as  he  has  not  hitherto  received  the  intended  benefit 
of  the  aforesaid  patent,  and  in  consideration  of  the  ex- 
traordinary nature  of  this  undertaking,  the  very  great 
expense,  hazard,  and  difficulty  he  has  undergone,  as 
well  as  the  advantage  he  has  thereby  procured  to  the 
nation  at  his  own  expense,  the  said  Sir  Thomas  Lombe 
humbly  hopes  the  Parliament  will  grant  him  a  further 
term  for  the  sole  making  and  using  his  engines,  or  such 
other  recompense  as  in  their  wisdom  shall  seem  meet."f 

*  "  The  Trade  and  Navigation  of  Great  Britain  Considered,"  p.  94. 

f  The  petition  sets  forth  the  merits  of  the  machine  at  Derby  for 
making  Italian  organzine  silk — "  a  manufacture  made  out  of  fine  raw- 
silk,  by  reducing  it  to  a  hard-twisted,  fine,  and  even  thread.  This 
silk  makes  the  warp,  and  is  absolutely  necessary  to  mix  with  and 
cover  the  Turkey  and  other  coarser  silks  thrown  here,  which  are  used 
for  Shute — so  that,  without  a  constant  supply  of  this  fine  Italian  or- 
ganzine silk,  very  little  of  the  said  Turkey  or  other  silks  could  be 
used,  nor  could  the  silk-weaving  trade  be  carried  on  in  England. 
This  Italian  organzine  (or  thrown)  silk  has  in  all  times  past  been 
bought  with  our  money,  ready  made  (or  worked)  in  Italy,  for  want 


Sir  Thomas  Lorribe  Rewarded.  117 

The  petition  was  referred  to  a  committee.  After 
consideration,  they  recommended  the  House  of  Com- 
mons to  grant  a  further  term  of  years  to  Sir  Thomas 
Lombe.  The  advisers  of  the  king,  however,  thought 
it  better  that  the  patent  should  not  be  renewed,  but 
that  the  trade  in  silk  should  be  thrown  free  to  all. 
Accordingly  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  acquaint- 
ed the  House  (14th  of  March,  1731)  that  "his  majesty, 
having  been  informed  of  the  case  of  Sir  Thomas  Lombe, 
with  respect  to  his  engine  for  making  organzine  silk, 
had  commanded  him  to  acquaint  this  House  that  his 
majesty  recommended  to  their  consideration  the  mak- 
ing such  provision  for  a  recompense  to  Sir  Thomas 
Lombe  as  they  shall  think  proper." 

The  result  was,  that  the  sum  of  £14,000  was  voted 
and  paid  to  Sir  Thomas  Lombe  as  "  a  reward  for  his 
eminent  services  done  to  the  nation  in  discovering 
with  the  greatest  hazard  and  difficulty  the  capital  Ital- 
ian engines,  and  introducing  and  bringing  the  same 
to  full  perfection  in  this  kingdom,  at  his  own  great 
expense."*     The  trade  was  accordingly  thrown  open. 

of  the  art  of  making  it  here.  Whereas  now,  by  making  it  ourselves 
out  of  fine  Italian  raw  silk,  the  nation  saves  near  one-third  part ;  and 
by  what  we  make  out  of  fine  China  raw  silk,  above  one  half  of  the 
price  we  pay  for  it  ready  worked  in  Italy.  The  machine  at  Derby 
contains  ninety-seven  thousand  seven  hundred  and  forty-six  wheels, 
movements,  and  individual  parts  (which  work  day  and  night),  all 
which  receive  their  motion  from  one  large  water  wheel,  are  governed 
by  one  regulator,  and  it  employs  about  three  hundred  persons  to  attend 
and  supply  it  with  work."  In  Eees'  Cyclopedia  (art.  "Silk  Manufac- 
ture ")  there  is  a  full  description  of  the  Piedmont  throwing-machine 
introduced  to  England  by  John  Lombe,  with  a  good  plate  of  it. 

*  Sir  Thomas  Lombe  died  in  1738.  He  had  two  daughters.  The 
first,  Hannah,  was  married  to  Sir  Robert  Clifton,  of  Clifton,  County 
Notts ;  the  second,  Mary  Turner,  was  married  to  James,  seventh  Earl 
of  Lauderdale.  In  his  will,  he  "recommends  his  wife,  at  the  con- 
clusion of  the  Darby  concern,"  to  distribute  among  his  "principal 
servants  or  managers  five  or  six  hundred  pounds." 


118  John  Lombe. 


Silk-mills  were  erected  at  Stockport  and  elsewhere; 
Hutton  says  that  divers  additional  mills  were  erected 
in  Derby;  and  a  large  and  thriving  trade  was  estab- 
lished. In  1850  the  number  employed  in  the  silk  man- 
ufacture exceeded  a  million  persons.  The  old  mill 
has  recently  become  disused.  Although  supported  by 
strong  wooden  supports,  it  showed  signs  of  falling, 
and  it  was  replaced  by  a  larger  mill,  more  suitable  to 
modern  requirements. 


CHAPTER  V. 
WILLIAM   MURDOCK, 

HIS    LIFE    AND    INTENTION. 

"Justice  exacts  that  those  by  whom  we  are  most  benefited  should 
be  most  admired." — Dr.  Johnson. 

"The  beginning  of  civilization  is  the  discovery  of  some  useful  arts, 
by  which  men  acquire  property,  comforts,  or  luxuries.  The  necessity 
or  desire  of  preserving  them  leads  to  laws  and  social  institutions.  .  .  . 
In  reality,  the  origin  as  well  as  the  progress  and  improvement  of  civil 
society  is  founded  on  mechanical  and  chemical  inventions." — Sir 
Humphry  Davy. 

At  the  middle  of  last  century,  Scotland  was  a  very 
poor  country.  It  consisted  mostly  of  mountain  and 
moorland;  and  the  little  arable  land  it  contained  was 
badly  cultivated.  Agriculture  was  almost  a  lost  art. 
"  Except  in  a  few  instances,"  says  a  writer  in  the  Farm- 
ers' Magazine  of  1803,  "  Scotland  was  little  better  than 
a  barren  waste."  Cattle  could  with  difficulty  be  kept 
alive;  and  the  people  in  some  parts  of  the  country 
were  often  on  the  brink  of  starvation.  The  people 
were  hopeless,  miserable,  and  without  spirit,  like  the 
Irish  in  their  very  worst  times.  After  the  wreck  of 
the  Darien  expedition,  there  seemed  to  be  neither  skill, 
enterprise,  nor  money  left  in  the  country.  What  re- 
sources it  contained  were  altogether  undeveloped. 
There  was  little  communication  between  one  place 
and  another,  and  such  roads  as  existed  were  for  the 
greater  part  of  the  year  simply  impassable. 

There  were  various  opinions  as  to  the  causes  of  this 


120  William  Murdoch 

frightful  state  of  things.  Some  thought  it  was  the 
union  between  England  and  Scotland ;  and  Andrew 
Fletcher  of  Saltoun,  "  The  Patriot,"  as  he  was  called, 
urged  its  repeal.  In  one  of  his  publications,  he  en- 
deavored to  show  that  about  one  sixth  of  the  popula- 
tion of  Scotland  was  in  a  state  of  beggary — two  hun- 
dred thousand  vagabonds  begging  from  door  to  door, 
or  robbing  and  plundering  people  as  poor  as  them- 
selves.* Fletcher  was  accordingly  as  great  a  repealer 
as  Daniel  O'Connell  in  after-times.  But  he  could  not 
get  the  people  to  combine.  There  were  others  who 
held  a  different  opinion.  They  thought  that  something 
might  be  done  by  the  people  themselves  to  extricate 
the  country  from  its  miserable  condition.  It  still  pos- 
sessed some  important  elements  of  prosperity.  The 
inhabitants  of  Scotland,  though  poor,  were  strong  and 
able  to  work.  The  land,  though  cold  and  sterile,  was 
capable  of  cultivation. 

Accordingly,  about  the  middle  of  last  century,  some 
important  steps  were  taken  to  improve  the  general 
condition  of  things.  A  few  public-spirited  landown- 
ers led  the  way,  and  formed  themselves  into  a  society 
for  carrying  out  improvements  in  agriculture.  They 
granted  long  leases  of  farms  as  a  stimulus  to  the  most 
skilled  and  industrious,  and  found  it  to  their  interest 
to  give  the  farmer  a  more  permanent  interest  in  his 
improvements  than  he  had  before  enjoyed.  Thus 
stimulated  and  encouraged,  farming  made  rapid  prog- 
ress, especially  in  the  Lothians ;  and  the  example 
spread  into  other  districts.  Banks  were  established 
for  the  storage  of  capital.  Roads  were  improved,  and 
communications  increased  between  one  part  of  the 
country  and  another.  Hence  trade  and  commerce 
arose,  by  reason  of  the  facilities  afforded  for  the  inter- 

*  Fletcher's  "Political  Works," London,  1737,  p.  149. 


Invention  of  James  Watt.  121 

change  of  traffic.  The  people,  being  fairly  educated 
by  the  parish  schools,  were  able  to  take  advantage  of 
these  improvements.  Sloth  and  idleness  gradually 
disappeared  before  the  energy,  activity,  and  industry 
which  were  called  into  life  by  the  improved  communi- 
cations. 

At  the  same  time  active  and  powerful  minds  were 
occupied  in  extending  the  domain  of  knowledge. 
Black  and  Robison,  of  Glasgow,  were  the  precursors 
of  James  Watt,  whose  invention  of  the  condensing 
steam-engine  was  yet  to  produce  a  revolution  in  in- 
dustrial operations  the  like  of  which  had  never  before 
been  known.  Watt  had  hit  upon  his  great  idea  while 
experimenting  with  an  old  Kewcomen  model  which  be- 
longed to  the  University  of  Glasgow.  He  was  invited 
by  Mr.  Roebuck,  of  Kinneil,  to  make  a  working  steam- 
engine  for  the  purpose  of  pumping  water  from  the 
coal-pits  at  Boroughstoness ;  but  his  progress  was 
stopped  by  want  of  capital,  as  well  as  by  want  of  ex- 
perience. It  was  not  until  the  brave  and  generous 
Matthew  Boulton  of  Birmingham  took  up  the  machine, 
and  backed  Watt  with  his  capital  and  his  spirit,  that 
Watt's  enterprise  had  the  remotest  chance  of  success. 
Even  after  about  twelve  years'  effort,  the  condensing 
steam-engine  was  only  beginning,  though  half-hearted- 
ly, to  be  taken  up  and  employed  by  colliery  proprie- 
tors and  cotton  manufacturers.  In  developing  its 
powers,  and  extending  its  uses,  the  great  merits  of 
William  Murdock  can  never  be  forgotten.  Watt 
stands  first  in  its  history,  as  the  inventor ;  Boulton 
second,  as  its  promoter  and  supporter;  and  Murdock 
third,  as  its  developer  and  improver. 

William  Murdock  was  born  on  the  21st  of  August, 
1754,  at  Bellow  Mill,  in  the  parish  of  Auchinleck,  Ayr- 
shire. His  father,  John,  was  a  miller  and  millwright, 
as  well  as  a  farmer.     His  mother's  maiden  name  was 

6 


122  William  Murdoch. 

Bruce,  and  she  used  to  boast  of  being  descended  from 
Robert  Bruce,  the  deliverer  of  Scotland.  The  Mur- 
docks,or  Murdochs — for  the  name  was  spelled  in  either 
way — were  numerous  in  the  neighborhood,  and  they 
were  nearly  all  related  to  each  other.  They  are  sup- 
posed to  have  originally  come  into  the  district  from 
Flanders,  between  which  country  and  Scotland  a  con- 
siderable intercourse  existed  in  the  middle  ages.  Some 
of  the  Murdocks  took  a  leading  part  in  the  construction 
of  the  abbeys  and  cathedrals  of  the  north;*  others 
were  known  as  mechanics;  but  the  greater  number 
were  farmers. 

One  of  the  best-known  members  of  the  family  was 
John  Murdock,  the  poet  Burns's  first  teacher.  Burns 
wrent  to  his  school  at  Alloway  Mill,  when  he  was  six 
years  old.  There  he  learned  to  read  and  write.  When 
Murdock  afterwards  set  up  a  school  at  Ayr,  Burns, 
who  was  then  fifteen,  went  to  board  with  him.  In  a 
letter  to  a  correspondent,  Murdock  said:  "In  1773, 
Robert  Burns  came  to  board  arid  lodge  with  me,  for 
the  purpose  of  revising  his  English  grammar,  that  he 
might  be  better  qualified  to  instruct  his  brothers  and 
sisters  at  home.     He  was  now  with  me  day  and  night, 

*  One  of  the  Murdocks  built  the  cathedral  at  Glasgow,  as  well  as 
others  in  Scotland.  The  famous  school  of  masonry  at  Antwerp  sent 
out  a  number  of  excellent  architects  during  the  eleventh,  twelfth,  and 
thirteenth  centuries.  One  of  these,  on  coming  into  Scotland,  assumed 
the  name  of  Murdo.  He  was  a  Frenchman,  born  in  Paris,  as  we  learn 
from  the  inscription  left  on  Melrose  Abbey,  and  he  died  while  build- 
ing that  noble  work ;  it  is  as  follows  : 

"John  Murdo  sumtyme  calt  was  I 
And  born  in  Peryse  certainly, 
An'  had  in  kepyng  all  mason  wark 
Sanct  Andrays,  the  Hye  Kirk  o'  Glasgo, 
Melrose  and  Paisley,  Jedybro  and  Galowy. 
Pray  to  God  and  Mary  baith,  and  sweet 
Saint  John,  keep  this  Holy  Kirk  frae  scaith." 


Murdochs  Boyhood.  123 

in  school,  at  all  meals,  and  in  all  my  walks."  The  pu- 
pil even  shared  the  teacher's  bed  at  night.  Murdock 
lent  the  boy  books,  and  helped  the  cultivation  of  his 
mind  in  many  ways.  Burns  soon  revived  his  English 
grammar,  and  learned  French,  as  well  as  a  little  Latin. 
Some  time  after,  Murdock  removed  to  London,  and 
had  the  honor  of  teaching  Talleyrand  English  during 
his  residence  as  an  emigrant  in  this  country.  He  con- 
tinued to  have  the  greatest  respect  for  his  former  pu- 
pil, whose  poetry  commemorated  the  beauties  of  his 
native  district. 

It  may  be  mentioned  that  Bellow  Mill  is  situated  on 
the  Bellow  Water,  near  where  it  joins  the  river  Lugar. 
One  of  Burns's  finest  songs  begins: 

"  Behind  yon  hills  where  Lugar  flows." 

That  was  the  scene  of  "William  Murdock's  boyhood. 
When  a  boy,  he  herded  his  father's  cows  along  the 
banks  of  the  Bellow  ;  and  as  there  were  then  no 
hedges,  it  was  necessary  to  have  some  one  to  watch 
the  cattle  while  grazing.  The  spot  is  still  pointed  out 
where  the  boy,  in  the  intervals  of  his  herding,  hewed 
a  square  compartment  out  of  the  rock  by  the  water- 
side, and  there  burned  the  splint  coal  fouud  on  the  top 
of  the  Black  Band  ironstone.  That  was  one  of  the 
undeveloped  industries  of  Scotland  ;  for  the  Scotch 
iron  trade  did  not  arrive  at  any  considerable  impor- 
tance until  about  a  century  later.*  The  little  cavern 
in  which  Murdock  burned  the  splint  coal  was  provided 
with  a  fireplace  and  vent,  all  complete.  It  is  possible 
that  he  may  have  there  derived,  from  his  experiments, 
the  first  idea  of  gas  as  an  illuminant. 

*  The  discovery  of  the  Black  Band  Ironstone  by  David  Mushet  in 
1801,  and  the  invention  of  the  hot  blast  by  James  Beaumont  Neilson 
in  1828,  will  be  found  related  in  "Industrial  Biography,"  pp.  141- 
161. 


124  William  Murdoch. 

Murdock  is  also  said  to  have  made  a  wooden  horse, 
worked  by  mechanical  power,  which  was  the  wonder 
of  the  district.  On  this  mechanical  horse  he  rode  to 
the  village  of  Cumnock,  about  two  miles  distant.  His 
father's  name  is,  however,  associated  with  his  own  in 
the  production  of  this  machine.  Old  John  Murdock 
had  a  reputation  for  intelligence  and  skill  of  no  ordi- 
nary kind.  When  at  Carron  ironworks,  in  1760,  he  had 
a  pinton  cast  after  a  pattern  which  he  had  prepared. 
This  is  said  to  have  been  the  first  piece  of  iron-toothed 
gearing  ever  used  in  mill  work.  When  I  last  saw  it, 
the  pinton  was  placed  on  the  lawn  in  front  of  William 
Murdock's  villa  at  Handsworth. 

The  young  man  helped  his  father  in  many  ways.  He 
worked  in  the  mill,  worked  on  the  farm,  and  assisted 
in  the  preparation  of  mill  machinery.  In  this  way 
he  obtained  a  considerable  amount  of  general  techni- 
cal knowledge.  He  even  designed  and  constructed 
bridges.  He  was  employed  to  build  a  bridge  over 
the  river  Nith,  near  Dumfries,  and  it  stands  there  to 
this  day,  a  solid  and  handsome  structure.  But  he  had 
an  ambition  to  be  something  more  than  a  country 
mason.  He  had  heard  a  great  deal  about  the  inven- 
tions of  James  Watt ;  and  he  determined  to  try 
whether  he  could  not  get  "  a  job  "  at  the  famous  man- 
ufactory at  Soho.  He  accordingly  left  his  native 
place  in  the  year  1777,  in  the  twenty-third  year  of  his 
age,  and  migrated  southward.  He  left  plenty  of  Mur- 
docks  behind  him.  There  was  a  famous  staff  in  the 
family,  originally  owned  by  William  Murdock's  grand- 
father, which  bore  the  following  inscription  :  "  This 
staff  I  leave  in  pedigree  to  the  oldest  Murdock  after 
me,  in  the  parish  of  Auchenleck,  1745."  This  staff 
was  lately  held  by  Jean  Murdock,  daughter  of  the 
late  William  Murdock,  joiner,  cousin  of  the  subject  of 
this  biography. 


Arrival  at  Soho.  125 

When  William  arrived  at  Soho  in  1777  he  called  at 
the  works  to  ask  for  employment.  Watt  was  then  in 
Cornwall,  looking  after  his  pumping-engines ;  but  he 
saw  Boulton,  who  was  usually  accessible  to  callers  of 
every  rank.  In  answer  to  Murdock's  inquiry  whether 
he  could  have  a  job,  Boulton  replied  that  work  was 
very  slack  with  them,  and  that  every  place  was  filled 
up.  During  the  brief  conversation  that  took  place, 
the  blate  young  Scotchman,  like  most  country  lads  in 
the  presence  of  strangers,  had  some  difficulty  in  know- 
ing what  to  do  with  his  hands,  and  unconsciously  kept 
twirling  his  hat  with  them.  Boulton's  attention  was 
attracted  to  the  twirling  hat,  which  seemed  to  be  of  a 
peculiar  make.  It  was  not  a  felt  hat,  nor  a  cloth  hat, 
nor  a  glazed  hat ;  but  it  seemed  to  be  painted,  and 
composed  of  some  unusual  material.  "  That  seems  to 
be  a  curious  sort  of  hat,"  said  Boulton,  looking  at  it 
more  closely;  "what  is  it  made  of?"  "Timmer,  sir," 
said  Murdock,  modestly.  "  Timmer  ?  Do  you  mean 
to  say  that  it  is  made  of  wood?"  "'Deed  it  is,  sir." 
"And  pray  how  was  it  made?"  "I  made  it  mysel', 
sir,  in  a  bit  laithey  of  my  own  contrivin'."  "In- 
deed !" 

Boulton  looked  at  the  young  man  again.  He  had 
risen  a  hundred  degrees  in  his  estimation.  William 
was  a  good-looking  fellow — tall,  strong,  and  handsome 
— with  an  open,  intelligent  countenance.  Besides,  he 
had  been  able  to  turn  a  hat  for  himself  with  a  lathe  of 
his  own  construction.  This,  of  itself,  was  a  sufficient 
proof  that  he  was  a  mechanic  of  no  mean  skill. 
"  Well !"  said  Boulton,  at  last,  "  I  will  inquire  at  the 
works,  and  see  if  there  is  anything  we  can  set  you  to. 
Call  again,  my  man."  "  Thank  you,  sir,"  said  Mur- 
dock, giving  a  final  twirl  to  his  hat. 

Such  was  the  beginning  of  William  Murdock's  con- 
nection with  the  firm  of  Boulton  &  Watt.     When  he 


126  William  Murdoch. 

called  again  he  was  put  upon  a  trial  job,  and  then,  as 
he  was  found  satisfactory,  he  was  engaged  for  two 
years  at  155.  a  week  when  at  home,  \His.  when  in  the 
country,  and  185.  when  in  London.  Boulton's  engage- 
ment of  Murdock  was  amply  justified  by  the  result. 
Beginning  as  an  ordinary  mechanic,  he  applied  him- 
self diligently  and  conscientiously  to  his  work,  and 
gradually  became  trusted.  More  responsible  duties 
were  confided  to  him,  and  he  strove  to  perform  them 
to  the  best  of  his  power.  His  industry,  skilfulness, 
and  sobriety  soon  marked  him  for  promotion,  and  he 
rose  from  grade  to  grade  until  he  became  Boulton  & 
Watt's  most  trusted  co-worker  and  adviser  in  all  their 
mechanical  undertakings  of  importance. 

Watt  himself  had  little  confidence  in  Scotchmen  as 
mechanics.  He  told  Sir  Walter  Scott  that  though 
many  of  them  sought  employment  at  his  works,  he 
could  never  get  any  of  them  to  become  first-rate  work- 
men. They  might  be  valuable  as  clerks  and  book- 
keepers, but  they  had  an  insuperable  aversion  to  toil- 
ing long  at  any  point  of  mechanism,  so  as  to  obtain 
the  highest  wages  paid  to  the  workmen.*  The  reason 
no  doubt  was,  that  the  working-people  of  Scotland  were 
then  only  in  course  of  education  as  practical  mechan- 
ics; and  now  that  they  have  had  a  century's  discipline 
of  work  and  technical  training,  the  result  is  altogether 
different,  as  the  engine-shops  and  ship-building  yards 
of  the  Clyde  abundantly  prove.  Mechanical  power 
and  technical  ability  are  the  result  of  training,  like 
many  other  things. 

When  Boulton  engaged  Murdock,  as  we  have  said, 
Watt  was  absent  in  Cornwall,  looking  after  the  pump- 
ing-engines  which  had  been  erected  at  several  of  the 
mines  throughout  that  county.     The  partnership  had 

*  Note  to  Lockhart's  "Life  of  Scott." 


Murdoch  in  Cornwall.  127 

only  been  in  existence  for  three  years,  and  Watt  was 
still  struggling  with  the  difficulties  which  he  had  to 
surmount  in  getting  the  steam-engine  into  practical 
use.  His  health  was  bad,  and  he  was  oppressed  with 
frightful  headaches.  He  was  not  the  man  to  fight  the 
selfishness  of  the  Cornish  adventurers.  "  A  little  more 
of  this  hurrying  and  vexation,"  he  said,  "  will  knock 
me  up  altogether."  Boulton  went  to  his  help  occa- 
sionally, and  gave  him  hope  and  courage.  And  at 
length  William  Murdock,  after  he  had  acquired  suf- 
ficient knowledge  of  the  business,  was  able  to  under- 
take the  principal  management  of  the  engines  in  Corn- 
wall. 

We  find  that  in  1779,  when  he  was  only  twenty-five 
years  old,  he  was  placed  in  this  important  position. 
When  he  went  into  Cornwall,  he  gave  himself  no  rest 
until  he  had  conquered  the  defects  of  the  engines,  and 
put  them  into  thorough  working  order.  He  devoted 
himself  to  his  duties  with  a  zeal  and  ability  that  com- 
pletely won  Watt's  heart.  When  he  had  an  important 
job  in  hand,  he  could  scarcely  sleep.  One  night  at  his 
lodgings  at  Redruth,  the  people  were  disturbed  by  a 
strange  noise  in  his  room.  Several  heavy  blows  were 
heard  upon  the  floor.  They  started  from  their  beds, 
rushed  to  Murdock's  room,  and  found  him  standing  in 
his  shirt,  heaving  at  the  bedpost  in  his  sleep,  shouting, 
"Now  she  goes,  lads  !  now  she  goes  !" 

Murdock  became  a  most  popular  man  with  the  mine 
owners.  He  also  became  friendly  with  the  Cornish 
workmen  and  engineers.  Indeed,  he  fought  his  way 
to  their  affections.  One  day,  some  half-dozen  of  the 
mining  captains  came  into  his  engine-room  at  Chace- 
water,  and  began  bullying  him.  This  he  could  not 
stand.  He  stripped,  selected  the  biggest,  and  put  him- 
self into  a  fighting  attitude.  They  set  to,  and  in  a  few 
minutes  Murdock's  powerful  bones  and  muscles  en- 


128  William  Murdoch. 

abled  him  to  achieve  the  victory.  The  other  men,  who 
had  looked  on  fairly,  without  interfering,  seeing  the 
temper  and  vigor  of  the  man  they  had  bullied,  made 
overtures  of  reconciliation.  William  was  quite  will- 
ing to  be  friendly.  Accordingly  they  shook  hands 
all  round,  and  parted  the  best  of  friends.  It  is  also 
said  that  Murdock  afterwards  fought  in  a  duel  with 
Captain  Trevethick,  because  of  a  quarrel  between 
Watt  and  the  mining  engineer,  in  which  Murdock  con- 
ceived his  master  to  have  been  unfairly  and  harshly 
treated.* 

The  uses  of  Watt's  steam-engine  began  to  be  recog- 
nized as  available  for  manufacturing  purj:>oses.  It  was 
then  found  necessary  to  invent  some  method  by  which 
continuous  rotary  motion  should  be  secured,  so  as  to 
turn  round  the  moving  machinery  of  mills.  With  this 
object  Watt  had  invented  his  original  wheel-engine. 
But  no  steps  were  taken  to  introduce  it  into  practical 
use.  At  length  he  prepared  a  model,  in  which  he  made 
use  of  a  crank  connected  with  the  working-beam  of 
the  engine,  so  as  to  produce  the  necessary  rotary  mo- 
tion. 

There  was  no  originality  in  this  application.  The 
crank  was  one  of  the  most  common  of  mechanical  ap- 
pliances. It  was  in  daily  use  in  every  spinning-wheel, 
and  in  every  turner's  and  knife-grinder's  foot-lathe. 
Watt  did  not  take  out  a  patent  for  the  crank,  not  be- 
lieving it  to  be  patentable.  But  another  person  did 
so,  thereby  anticipating  Watt  in  the  application  of  the 
crank  for  producing  rotary  motion.  He  had  therefore 
to  employ  some  other  method,  and  in  the  new  contriv- 
ance he  had  the  valuable  help  of  William  Murdock. 
Watt  devised  five  different  methods  of  securing  rotary 

*  This  was  stated  to  the  present  writer  some  years  ago  by  William 
Murdock's  son  ;  although  there  is  no  other  record  of  the  event. 


" Sun-and-planet  Motion"  129 

motion  without  using  the  crank,  but  eventually  he 
adopted  the  "  Sun  -  and  -  planet  motion,"  the  invention 
of  Murdock.  This  had  the  singular  property  of  going 
twice  round  for  every  stroke  of  the  engine,  and  might 
be  made  to  go  round  much  oftener  without  additional 
machinery.  The  invention  was  patented  in  February, 
1782,  five  years  after  Murdock  had  entered  the  service 
of  Boulton  &  Watt. 

Murdock  continued  for  many  years  busily  occupied 
in  superintending  the  Cornish  steam-engines.  We  find 
him  described  by  his  employers  as  "  flying  from  mine 
to  mine,"  putting  the  engines  to  rights.  If  anything 
went  wrong,  he  was  immediately  sent  for.  He  was 
active,  quick-sighted,  shrewd,  sober,  and  thoroughly 
reliable.  Down  to  the  year  1780  his  wages  were  only 
a  pound  a  week;  but  Boulton  made  him  a  present  of 
ten  guineas,  to  which  the  owners  of  the  United  Mines 
added  another  ten,  in  acknowledgment  of  the  admira- 
ble manner  in  which  he  had  erected  their  new  engine, 
the  chairman  of  the  company  declaring  that  he  was 
"the  most  obliging  and  industrious  workman  he  had 
ever  known."  That  he  secured  the  admiration  of  the 
Cornish  engineers  may  be  obvious  from  the  fact  of 
Mr.  Boaze  having  invited  him  to  join  in  an  engi- 
neering partnership;  but  Murdock  remained  loyal  to 
the  Birmingham  firm,  and  in  due  time  he  had  his  re- 
ward. 

He  continued  to  be  the  "  right  -  hand  man  "  of  the 
concern  in  Cornwall.  Boulton  wrote  to  Watt,  towards 
the  end  of  1782  :  "Murdock  hath  been  indefatigable 
ever  since  he  began.  He  has  scarcely  been  in  bed  or 
taken  necessary  food.  After  slaving  night  and  day  on 
Thursday  and  Friday,  a  letter  came  from  Wheal  Vir- 
gin that  he  must  go  instantly  to  set  their  engine  to 
work  or  they  would  let  out  the  fire.  He  went  and  set 
the  engine  to  work;  it  worked  well  for  the  five  or  six 

6* 


130  William  Murdoch 

hours  he  remained.  He  left  it,  and  returned  to  the 
Consolidated  Mines  about  eleven  at  night,  and  was 
employed  about  the  engines  till  four  this  morning, 
and  then  went  to  bed.  I  found  him  at  ten  this  morn- 
ing in  Poldice  Cistern,  seeking  for  pins  and  castors 
that  had  jumped  out,  when  I  insisted  on  his  going 
home  to  bed." 

On  one  occasion,  when  an  engine  superintended  by 
Murdock  stopped  through  some  accident,  the  water 
rose  in  the  mine,  and  the  workmen  were  "drowned 
out."  Upon  this  occurring,  the  miners  went  "  roaring 
at  him  "  for  throwing  them  out  of  work,  and  threat- 
ened to  tear  him  to  pieces.  Nothing  daunted,  he  went 
through  the  midst  of  the  men,  repaired  the  invalided 
engine,  and  started  it  afresh.  When  he  came  out  of 
the  engine-house  the  miners  cheered  him  vociferously, 
and  insisted  upon  carrying  him  home  upon  their  shoul- 
ders in  triumph  ! 

Steam  was  now  asserting  its  power  everywhere.  It 
was  pumping  water  from  the  mines  in  Cornwall  and 
driving  the  mills  of  the  manufacturers  in  Lancashire. 
Speculative  mechanics  began  to  consider  whether  it 
might  not  be  employed  as  a  means  of  land  locomotion. 
The  comprehensive  mind  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton  had  long 
before,  in  his  "  Explanation  of  the  Newtonian  Philoso- 
phy," thrown  out  the  idea  of  employing  steam  for  this 
purpose;  but  no  practical  experiment  was  made.  Ben- 
jamin Franklin,  while  agent  in  London  for  the  United 
Provinces  of  America,  had  a  correspondence  with  Mat- 
thew Boulton,  of  Birmingham,  and  Dr.  Darwin,  of 
Lichfield,  on  the  same  subject.  Boulton  sent  a  model 
of  a  fire-engine  to  London  for  Franklin's  inspection; 
but  Franklin  was  too  much  occupied  at  the  time  by 
grave  political  questions  to  pursue  the  subject  further. 
Erasmus  Darwin's  speculative  mind  was  inflamed  by 
the  idea  of  a  "fiery  chariot,"  and  he  urged  his  friend 


The  First  Locomotive.  131 

Boulton  to  prosecute  the  contrivance  of  the  necessary 
steam  machinery.* 

Other  minds  were  at  work.  Watt,  when  only  twen- 
ty-three years  old,  at  the  instigation  of  his  friend  Rob- 
ison,  made  a  model  locomotive,  provided  with  two  cyl- 
inders of  tin  plate;  but  the  project  was  laid  aside,  and 
was  never  again  taken  up  by  the  inventor.  Yet,  in 
his  patent  of  1784,  Watt  included  an  arrangement  by 
means  of  which  steam-power  might  be  employed  for 
the  purposes  of  locomotion.  But  no  further  model  of 
the  contrivance  was  made. 

Meanwhile,  Cugnot,  of  Paris,  had  already  made  a 
road-engine  worked  by  steam-power.  It  was  first  tried 
at  the  arsenal,  in  1769;  and,  being  set  in  motion,  it  ran 
against  a  stone  wall  in  its  way,  and  threw  it  down. 
The  engine  was  afterwards  tried  in  the  streets  of  Paris. 
In  one  of  the  experiments  it  fell  over  with  a  crash,  and 
was  thenceforward  locked  up  in  the  arsenal  to  prevent 
its  doing  further  mischief.  This  first  locomotive  is 
now  to  be  seen  at  the  Conservatoire  des  Arts  et  Me- 
tiers, at  Paris. 

Murdock  had  doubtless  heard  of  Watt's  original 
speculations,  and  proceeded,  while  at  Redruth,  during 
his  leisure  hours,  to  construct  a  model  locomotive  after 
a  design  of  his  own.  This  model  was  of  small  dimen- 
sions, standing  little  more  than  a  foot  and  a  half  high, 
though  it  was  sufficiently  large  to  demonstrate  the 
soundness  of  the  principle  on  which  it  was  construct- 
ed. It  was  supported  on  three  wheels,  and  carried  a 
small  copper  boiler,  heated  by  a  spirit-lamp,  with  a  flue 
passing  obliquely  through  it.  The  cylinder,  of  three- 
quarter-inch  diameter  and  two-inch  stroke,  was  fixed 
in  the  top  of  the  boiler,  the  piston-rod  being  connect- 

*  See  "Lives  of  Engineers"  (Boulton  &  Watt),  vol.  iv.  pp.  182-184. 
Small  edition,  pp.  130-132. 


132  William  Murdoch. 

ed  with  the  vibratory  beam  attached  to  the  connect- 
ing-rod which  worked  the  crank  of  the  driving-wheel. 
This  little  engine  worked  by  the  expansive  force  of 
steam  only,  which  was  discharged  into  the  atmosphere 
after  it  had  done  its  work  of  alternately  raising  and 
depressing  the  piston  in  the  cylinder. 

Mr.  Murdock's  son,  while  living  at  Handsworth,  in- 
formed the  present  writer  that  this  model  was  invented 
and  constructed  in  1781;  but,  after  perusing  the  cor- 
respondence of  Boulton  &  Watt,  we  infer  that  it  was 
not  ready  for  trial  until  1784.  The  first  experiment 
was  made  in  Murdock's  own  house  at  Redruth,  when 
the  little  engine  successfully  hauled  a  model  wagon 
round  the  room,  the  single  wheel,  placed  in  front  of 
the  engine  and  working  in  a  swivel  frame,  enabling  it 
to  run  round  in  a  circle. 

Another  experiment  was  made  out  of  doors,  on  which 
occasion,  small  though  the  engine  was,  it  fairly  outran 
the  speed  of  its  inventor.  One  night,  after  returning 
from  his  duties  at  the  mine  at  Redruth,  Murdock  went 
with  his  model  locomotive  to  the  avenue  leading  to  the 
church,  about  a  mile  from  the  town.  The  walk  was 
narrow,  straight,  and  level.  Having  lighted  the  lamp, 
the  water  soon  boiled,  and  off  started  the  engine  with 
the  inventor  after  it.  Shortly  after  he  heard  distant 
shouts  of  terror.  It  was  too  dark  to  perceive  objects, 
but  he  found,  on  following  up  the  machine,  that  the 
cries  had  proceeded  from  the  worthy  vicar,  who,  while 
going  along  the  walk,  had  met  the  hissing  and  fiery  lit- 
tle monster,  which  he  declared  he  took  to  be  the  Evil 
One  in  propria  persona  ! 

When  Watt  was  informed  of  Murdock's  experi- 
ments, he  feared  that  they  might  interfere  with  his  reg- 
ular duties,  and  advised  their  discontinuance.  Should 
Murdock  still  resolve  to  continue  them,  then  Watt 
urged  his  partner,  Boulton,  then  in  Cornwall,  that, 


His  Model  Locomotive.  133 

rather  than  lose  Murdock's  services,  they  should  ad- 
vance him  £100;  and,  if  he  succeeded  within  a  year 
in  making  an  engine  capable  of  drawing  a  post-chaise 
carrying  two  passengers  and  the  driver,  at  the  rate  of 
four  miles  an  hour,  that  a  locomotive-engine  business 
should  be  established,  with  Murdock  as  a  partner.  The 
arrangement,  however,  never  proceeded  any  further. 
Perhaps  a  different  attraction  withdrew  Murdock  from 
his  locomotive  experiments.  He  was  then  paying  at- 
tention to  a  young  lady,  the  daughter  of  Captain  Paint- 
er, and  in  1785  he  married  her,  and  brought  her  home 
to  his  house  in  Cross  Street,  Redruth. 

In  the  following  year — September,  1786 — Watt  says, 
in  a  letter  to  Boulton,  "  I  have  still  the  same  opinion 
concerning  the  steam-carriage,  but,  to  prevent  more 
fruitless  argument  about  it,  I  have  one  of  some  size 
under  hand.  In  the  meantime,  I  wish  William  could 
be  brought  to  do  as  we  do,  to  mind  the  business  in 
hand,  and  let  such  as  Symington  and  Sadler  throw 
away  their  time  and  money  in  hunting  shadows."  In 
a  subsequent  letter  Watt  expressed  his  gratification  at 
finding  "  that  William  applies  to  his  business."  From 
that  time  forward  Murdock,  as  well  as  Watt,  dropped 
all  further  speculation  on  the  subject,  and  left  it  to 
others  to  work  out  the  problem  of  the  locomotive  en- 
gine. Murdock's  model  remained  but  a  curious  toy, 
which  he  took  pleasure  in  exhibiting  to  his  intimate 
friends;  and,  though  he  long  continued  to  speculate 
about  road  locomotion,  and  was  persuaded  of  its  prac- 
ticability, he  abstained  from  embodying  his  ideas  of 
the  necessary  engine  in  any  complete  working  form. 

Murdock,  nevertheless,  continued  inventing,  for  the 
man  who  is  given  to  invent,  and  who  possesses  the  gift 
of  insight,  cannot  rest.  He  lived  in  the  midst  of  in- 
ventors. Watt  and  Boulton  were  constantly  suggest- 
ing new  things,  and  Murdock  became  possessed  by  the 


134  William  Murdoch 

same  spirit.  In  1791  he  took  out  his  first  patent.  It 
was  for  a  method  of  preserving  ships'  bottoms  from 
foulness  by  the  use  of  a  certain  kind  of  chemical  paint. 
Mr.  Murdock's  grandson  informs  us  that  it  was  recent- 
ly repatented,  and  was  the  cause  of  a  lawsuit,  and  that 
Hislop's  patent  for  revivifying  gas-lime  would  have 
been  an  infringement,  if  it  had  not  expired. 

Murdock  is  still  better  known  by  his  invention  of 
gas  for  lighting  purposes.  Several  independent  in- 
quirers into  the  constituents  of  Newcastle  coal  had 
arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  nearly  one  third  of  the 
substance  was  driven  off  in  vapor  by  the  application 
of  heat,  and  that  the  vapor  so  driven  off  was  inflam- 
mable. But  no  suggestion  had  been  made  to  apply 
this  vapor  for  lighting  purposes  until  Murdock  took 
the  matter  in  hand.  Mr.  M.  S.  Pearse  has  sent  us  the 
following  interesting  reminiscence:  "  Some  time  since, 
when  in  the  West  of  Cornwall,  I  was  anxious  to  find  out 
whether  any  one  remembered  Murdock.  I  discovered 
one  of  the  most  respectable  and  intelligent  men  in 
Camborne,  Mr.  "William  Symons,  who  not  only  dis- 
tinctly remembered  Murdock,  but  had  actually  been 
present  on  one  of  the  first  occasions  when  gas  was 
used.  Murdock,  he  says,  was  very  fond  of  children, 
and  not  unfrequently  took  them  into  his  workshop,  to 
show  them  what  he  was  doing.  Hence  it  happened 
that,  on  one  occasion,  this  gentleman,  then  a  boy  of 
seven  or  eight,  was  standing  outside  Murdock's  door 
with  some  other  boys,  trying  to  catch  sight  of  some 
special  mystery  inside — for  Dr.  Boaze,  the  chief  doc- 
tor of  the  place,  and  Murdock  had  been  busy  all  the 
afternoon.  Murdock  came  out,  and  asked  my  inform- 
ant to  run  down  to  a  shop  near  by  for  a  thimble.  On 
returning  with  the  thimble,  the  boy  pretended  to  have 
lost  it,  and,  while  searching  in  every  pocket,  he  man- 
aged to  slip  inside  the  door  of  the  workshop,  and  then 


The  First  Gas-light  135 

produced  the  thimble.  He  found  Dr.  Boaze  and  Mur- 
dock  with  a  kettle  filled  with  coal.  The  gas  issuing 
from  it  had  been  burned  in  a  large  metal  case,  such  as 
was  used  for  blasting  purposes.  Now,  however,  they 
had  applied  a  much  smaller  tube,  and  at  the  end  of  it 
fastened  the  thimble,  through  the  small  perforations 
made  in  which  they  burned  a  continuous  jet  for  some 
time."* 

After  numerous  experiments,  Murdock  had  his  house 
in  Cross  Street  fitted  up,  in  1792,  for  being  lighted  by 
gas.  The  coal  was  subjected  to  heat  in  an  iron  retort, 
and  the  gas  was  conveyed  in  pipes  to  the  offices  and 
the  different  rooms  of  the  house,  where  it  was  burned 
at  proper  apertures  or  burners. f  Portions  of  the  gas 
were  also  confined  in  portable  vessels  of  tinned  iron, 
from  which  it  was  burned  when  required,  thus  form- 
ing a  movable  gaslight.  Murdock  had  a  gas  lantern 
in  regular  use,  for  the  purpose  of  lighting  himself 
home  at  night  across  the  moors  from  the  mines  where 
he  was  working  to  his  home  at  Redruth.  This  lan- 
tern was  formed  by  filling  a  bladder  with  gas  and  fix- 
ing a  jet  to  the  mouth-piece  at  the  bottom  of  a  glass 
lantern,  with  the  bladder  hanging  underneath. 

Having  satisfied  himself  as  to  the  superior  economy 
of  coal  gas  as  compared  with  oils  and  tallow  for  the 
purposes  of  artificial  illumination,  Murdock  mentioned 
the  subject  to  Mr.  James  Watt,  junior,  during  a  brief 

*  Mr.  Pearse's  letter  is  dated  23d  of  April,  1867,  but  has  not  be- 
fore been  published.  He  adds  that  "  others  remembered  Murdock: 
one  who  was  an  apprentice  with  him,  and  lived  with  him  for  some 
time — a  Mr.  Vivian,  of  the  foundry  at  Luckingmill." 

t  Murdock's  house  still  stands  in  Cross  Street,  Redruth;  those  still 
live  who  saw  the  gas-pipes  conveying  gas  from  the  retort  in  the  little 
yard  to  near  the  ceiling  of  the  room,  just  over  the  table;  a  hole  for 
the  pipe  was  made  in  the  window-frame.  The  old  window  is  now 
replaced  by  a  new  frame."  —  Life  of  Richard  Trevethick,  vol.  i. 
p.  64. 


136  William  Murdoch. 

visit  to  Soho,  in  1794,  and  urged  the  propriety  of  tak- 
ing out  a  patent.  Watt  was,  however,  indifferent  to 
taking  out  any  further  patents,  being  still  engaged  in 
contesting  with  the  Cornish  mine-owners  his  father's 
rights  to  the  user  of  the  condensing  steam-engine. 
Nothing  definite  was  done  at  the  time.  Murdock  re- 
turned to  Cornwall,  and  continued  his  experiments. 
At  the  end  of  the  same  year  he  exhibited  to  Mr.  Phil- 
lips and  others,  at  the  Polgooth  mine,  his  apparatus 
for  extracting  gases  from  coal  and  other  substances, 
showed  it  in  use,  lighted  the  gas  which  issued  from 
the  burner,  and  showed  its  "strong  and  beautiful 
light."  He  afterwards  exhibited  the  same  apparatus 
to  Tregelles  and  others  at  the  Neath  Abbey  Company's 
iron-works,  in  Glamorganshire. 

Murdock  returned  to  Soho  in  1798,  to  take  up  his 
permanent  residence  in  the  neighborhood.  When  the 
mine-owners  heard  of  his  intention  to  leave  Cornwall, 
they  combined  in  offering  him  a  handsome  salary  pro- 
vided he  would  remain  in  the  county;  but  his  attach- 
ment to  his  friends  at  Soho  would  not  allow  him  to 
comply  with  their  request.  He  again  urged  the  firm 
of  Boulton  &  Watt  to  take  out  a  patent  for  the  use 
of  gas  for  lighting  purposes.  But,  being  still  em- 
broiled in  their  tedious  and  costly  lawsuit,  they  were 
naturally  averse  to  risk  connection  with  any  other  pat- 
ent. Watt  the  younger,  with  whom  Murdock  com- 
municated on  the  subject,  was  aware  that  the  current 
of  gas  obtained  from  the  distillation  of  coal  in  Lord 
Dundonald's  tar-ovens  had  been  occasionally  set  fire 
to,  and  also  that  Bishop  Watson  and  others  had  burned 
gas  from  coal,  after  conducting  it  through  tubes,  or  as 
it  had  issued  from  the  retort.  Mr.  Watt  was,  however, 
quite  satisfied  that  Murdock  was  the  first  person  who 
had  suggested  its  economical  application  for  public  and 
private  uses.     But  he  was  not  clear,  after  the  legal  dif- 


.   His  Many  Inventions.  137 

Acuities  which  had  been  raised  as  to  his  father's  pat- 
ent rights,  that  it  would  be  safe  to  risk  a  further  pat- 
ent for  gas. 

Mr.  Murdock's  suggestion,  accordingly,  was  not  act- 
ed upon.  But  he  went  on  inventing  in  other  direc- 
tions. He  thenceforward  devoted  himself  entirely  to 
mechanical  pursuits.  Mr.  Buckle  has  said  of  him : 
"The  rising  sun  often  found  him,  after  a  night  spent 
in  incessant  labor,  still  at  the  anvil  or  turning-lathe; 
for  with  his  own  hands  he  would  make  such  articles 
as  he  would  not  intrust  to  unskilful  ones."  In  IV 9 9 
he  took  out  a  patent  (No.  2340)  embodying  some  very 
important  inventions.  First,  it  included  the  endless 
screw  working  into  a  toothed  wheel,  for  boring  steam- 
cylinders,  which  is  still  in  use.  Second,  the  casting  of  a 
steam-jacket  in  one  cylinder,  instead  of  being  made  in 
separate  segments  bolted  together  with  caulked  joints, 
as  was  previously  done.  Third,  the  new  double-D 
slide-valve,  by  which  the  construction  and  working  of 
the  steam-engine  was  simplified,  and  the  loss  of  steam 
saved;  as  well  as  the  cylindrical  valve  for  the  same 
purpose.  And,  fourth,  an  improved  rotary  engine. 
One  of  them  was  set  to  drive  the  machines  in  his  pri- 
vate workshop,  and  continued  in  nearly  constant  work 
and  in  perfect  use  for  about  thirty  years. 

In  1801  Murdock  sent  his  two  sons,  William  and 
John,  to  the  Ayr  Academy  for  the  benefit  of  Scotch 
education.  In  the  summer-time  they  spent  their  vaca- 
tion at  Bellow  Mill,  which  their  grandfather  still  con- 
tinued to  occupy.  They  fished  in  the  river,  and  "  caught 
a  good  many  trout."  The  boys  corresponded  regular- 
ly with  their  father  at  Birmingham.  In  1804  they 
seem  to  have  been  in  a  state  of  great  excitement  about 
the  expected  landing  of  the  French  in  Scotland.  The 
volunteers  of  Ayr  amounted  to  three  hundred  men, 
the  cavalry  to  one  hundred  and  fifty,  and  the  riflemen 


138  William  Murdoch 

to  fifty.  "  The  riflemen,"  says  John,  "  go  to  the  sea- 
shore every  Saturday  to  shoot  at  a  target.  They  stand 
at  seventy  paces  distant,  and  out  of  one  hundred  shots 
they  often  put  in  sixty  bullets!"  William  says,  "  Great 
preparations  are  still  making  for  the  reception  of  the 
French.  Several  thousand  of  pikes  are  carried  through 
the  town  every  week;  and  all  the  volunteers  and  rifle- 
men have  received  orders  to  march  at  a  moment's  warn- 
ing." The  alarm,  however,  passed  away.  At  the  end 
of  1804  the  two  boys  received  prizes;  William  got  one 
in  arithmetic  and  another  in  the  rector's  composition 
class;  and  John  also  obtained  two,  one  in  the  mathe- 
matical class,  and  the  other  in  French. 

To  return  to  the  application  of  gas  for  lighting  pur- 
poses. In  1801  a  plan  was  proposed  by  a  M.  Le  Blond 
for  lighting  a  part  of  the  streets  of  Paris  with  gas. 
Murdock  actively  resumed  his  experiments;  and  on  the 
occasion  of  the  Peace  of  Amiens,  in  March,  1802,  he 
made  the  first  public  exhibition  of  his  invention.  The 
whole  of  the  works  at  Soho  were  brilliantly  illuminated 
with  gas.  The  sight  was  received  with  immense  en- 
thusiasm. There  could  now  be  no  doubt  as  to  the 
enormous  advantages  of  this  method  of  producing  arti- 
ficial light  compared  with  that  from  oil  or  tallow.  In 
the  following  year  the  manufacture  of  gas-making  ap- 
paratus was  added  to  the  other  branches  of  Boulton  & 
Watt's  business,  with  which  Murdock  was  now  asso- 
ciated, and  as  much  as  from  £4000  to  £5000  of  capital 
were  invested  in  the  new  works.  The  new  method  of 
lighting  speedily  became  popular  among  manufacturers 
from  its  superior  safety,  cheapness,  and  illuminating 
power.  The  mills  of  Phillips  &  Lee,  of  Manchester, 
were  fitted  up  in  1805,  and  those  of  Burley  &  Ken- 
nedy, also  of  Manchester,  and  of  Messrs.  Gott,  of  Leeds, 
in  subsequent  years. 

Though  Murdock  had  made  the  uses  of  gas-lighting 


Public  Gas-lighting.  139 

perfectly  clear,  it  was  some  time  before  it  was  proposed 
to  light  the  streets  by  the  new  method.  The  idea  was 
ridiculed  by  Sir  Humphry  Davy,  who  asked  one  of 
the  projectors  if  he  intended  to  take  the  dome  of  St. 
Paul's  for  a  gasometer!  Sir  Walter  Scott  made  many 
clever  jokes  about  those  who  proposed  to  "  send  light 
through  the  streets  in  pipes;"  and  even  Wollaston,  a 
well-known  man  of  science,  declared  that  they  "  might 
as  well  attempt  to  light  London  with  a  slice  from  the 
moon."  It  has  been  so  with  all  new  projects — with 
the  steamboat,  the  locomotive,  and  the  electric  tele- 
graph. As  John  Wilkinson  said  of  the  first  vessel  of 
iron  which  he  introduced,  "  it  will  be  only  a  nine-days' 
wonder,  and  afterwards  a  Columbus's  egg.^ 

On  the  25th  of  February,  1808,  Murdock  read  a  pa- 
per before  the  Royal  Society  "  On  the  Application  of 
Gas  from  Coal  to  Economical  Purposes."  He  gave  a 
history  of  the  origin  and  progress  of  his  experiments 
down  to  the  time  when  he  had  satisfactorily  lighted  up 
the  premises  of  Phillips  &  Lee  at  Manchester.  The 
paper  was  modest  and  unassuming,  like  everything  he 
did.  It  concluded:  "I  believe  I  may,  without  pre- 
suming too  much,  claim  both  the  first  idea  of  applying 
and  the  first  application  of  this  gas  to  economical  pur- 
poses."* The  Royal  Society  awarded  Murdock  their 
large  Rumford  Gold  Medal  for  his  communication. 

In  the  following  year  a  German  named  Wintzer,  or 
Winsor,  appeared  as  the  promoter  of  a  scheme  for  ob- 
taining a  royal  charter  with  extensive  privileges,  and 
applied  for  powers  to  form  a  joint-stock  company  to 
light  part  of  London  and  Westminster  with  gas.  Win- 
sor claimed  for  his  method  of  gas  manufacture  that  it 
was  more  efficacious  and  profitable  than  any  then  known 
or  practised.     The  profits,  indeed,  were  to  be  prodig- 

*  "Philosophical  Transactions"  (1808),  pp.  124-132. 


140  William  Murdoch. 

ions.  Winsor  made  an  elaborate  calculation  in  his 
pamphlet,  entitled  "The  New  Patriotic  Imperial  and 
National  Light  and  Heat  Company,"  from  which  it 
appeared  that  the  net  annual  profits  "  agreeable  to  the 
official  experiments"  would  amount  to  over  £229,000,- 
000!  and  that,  giving  over  nine  tenths  of  that  sum  tow- 
ards the  redemption  of  the  national  debt,  there  would 
still  remain  a  total  profit  of  £570  to  be  paid  to  the  sub- 
scribers for  every  £5  of  deposit!  Winsor  took  out  a 
patent  for  the  invention,  and  the  company,  of  which 
he  was  a  member,  proceeded  to  Parliament  for  an 
act.  Boulton  &  Watt  petitioned  against  the  bill,  and 
James  Watt,  junior,  gave  evidence  on  the  subject. 
Henry  Brougham,  who  was  the  counsel  for  the  peti- 
tioners, made  great  fun  of  Winsor's  absurd  specula- 
tions,* and  the  bill  was  thrown  out. 

In  the  following  year  the  London  and  Westminster 
Chartered  Gas-light  and  Coke  Company  succeeded  in 
obtaining  their  act.  They  were  not  very  successful  at 
first.  Many  prejudices  existed  against  the  employment 
of  the  new  light.  It  was  popularly  supposed  that  the 
gas  was  carried  along  the  pipes  on  fire,  and  that  the 
pipes  must  necessarily  be  intensely  hot.  When  it  was 
proposed  to  light  the  House  of  Commons  with  gas,  the 
architect  insisted  on  the  pipes  being  placed  several 


*  Winsor's  family  evidently  believed  in  his  great  powers  ;  for  I  am 
informed  by  Francis  Galton,  Esq.,  F.R.S.,  that  there  is  a  fantastical 
monument  on  the  right-hand  side  of  the  central  avenue  of  the  Kensal 
Green  Cemetery,  about  half-way  between  the  lodge  and  the  church, 
which  bears  the  following  inscription  : 

"Tomb  of  Frederick  Albert  Winsor,  son  of  the  late  Frederick  Al- 
bert Winsor,  originator  of  public  Gas-lighting,  buried  in  the  Cemetery 
of  Pere  la  Chaise,  Paris. 

"  'At  evening  time  it  shall  be  light.' — Zechariah  xiv.  7. 

" c  I  am  come  a  light  into  the  world,  that  whosoever  believeth  in 
Mo  shall  not  abide  in  darkness.' — John  xii.  46.'' 


Gas-lighting  Schemes.  141 

inches  from  the  walls,  for  fear  of  fire  ;  and,  after  the 
pipes  had  been  fixed,  the  members  might  be  seen  ap- 
plying their  gloved  hands  to  them  to  ascertain  their 
temperature,  and  afterwards  expressing  the  greatest 
surprise  on  finding  that  they  were  as  cool  as  the  ad- 
joining walls. 

The  gas  company  was  on  the  point  of  dissolution 
when  Mr.  Samuel  Clegg  came  to  their  aid.  Clegg  had 
been  a  pupil  of  Murdock's,  at  Soho.  He  knew  all  the 
arrangements  which  Murdock  had  invented.  He  had 
assisted  in  fitting  up  the  gas  machinery  at  the  mills  of 
Phillips  &  Lee,  Manchester,  as  well  as  at  Lodge's  Mill, 
Sowerby  Bridge,  near  Halifax.  He  was  afterwards 
employed  to  fix  the  apparatus  at  the  Catholic  College 
of  Stoneyhurst,  in  Lancashire,  at  the  manufactory  of 
Mr.  Harris,  at  Coventry,  and  at  other  places.  In  1813 
the  London  and  Westminster  Gas  Company  secured 
the  services  of  Mr.  Clegg,  and  from  that  time  forward 
their  career  was  one  of  prosperity.  In  1814  Westmin- 
ster Bridge  was  first  lighted  with  gas,  and  shortly  after 
the  streets  of  St.  Margaret's,  Westminster.  Crowds  of 
people  followed  the  lamplighter  on  his  rounds  to  watch 
the  sudden  effect  of  his  flame  applied  to  the  invisible 
stream  of  gas  which  issued  from  the  burner.  The 
lamplighters  became  so  disgusted  with  the  new  light 
that  they  struck  work,  and  Clegg  himself  had  for  a 
time  to  act  as  lamplighter. 

The  advantages  of  the  new  light,  however,  soon  be- 
came generally  recognized,  and  gas  companies  were 
established  in  most  of  the  large  towns.  Glasgow  was 
lighted  up  by  gas  in  1817,  and  Liverpool  and  Dublin 
in  the  following  year.  Had  Murdock,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, taken  out  a  patent  for  his  invention,  it  could 
not  fail  to  have  proved  exceedingly  remunerative  to 
him;  but  he  derived  no  advantage  from  the  extended 
use  of  the  new  system  of  lighting  except  the  honor  of 


142  William  Murdoch. 

having  invented  it.*  He  left  the  benefits  of  his  inven- 
tion to  the  public,  and  returned  to  his  labors  at  Soho, 
which  more  than  ever  completely  engrossed  him. 

Mnrdock  now  became  completely  identified  with  the 
firm  of  Boulton  &  Watt.  He  assigned  to  them  his 
patent  for  the  slide-valve,  the  rotary  engine,  and  other 
inventions  "  for  a  good  and  valuable  consideration." 
Indeed,  his  able  management  was  almost  indispensable 
to  the  continued  success  of  the  Soho  foundery.  Mr. 
Nasniyth,  when  visiting  the  works  about  thirty  years 
after  Murdock  had  taken  their  complete  management 
in  hand,  recalled  to  mind  the  valuable  services  of  that 
truly  admirable  yet  modest  mechanic.  He  observed 
the  admirable  system  which  he  had  invented  of  trans- 
mitting power  from  one  central  engine  to  other  small 
vacuum  engines  attached  to  the  several  machines 
which  they  were  employed  to  work.  "This  vacuum 
method,"  he  says,  "  of  transmitting  power  dates  from 
the  time  of  Papin;  but  it  remained  a  dead  contrivance 
for  about  a  century,  until  it  received  the  masterly 
touch  of  Murdock." 

"The  sight  which  I  obtained"  (Mr.  Nasniyth  pro- 
ceeds) "  of  the  vast  series  of  workshops  of  that  cele- 
brated establishment,  fitted  with  evidences  of  the  pres- 
ence and  results  of  such  master  minds  in  design  and 
execution,  and  the  special  machine  tools  which  I  be- 

*  Mr.  Parkes,  in  his  well-known  "Chemical  Essays"  (ed.  1841, 
p.  157),  after  referring  to  the  successful  lighting  up  by  Murdock  of 
the  manufactory  of  Messrs.  Phillips  &  Lee  at  Manchester,  in  1805, 
"with  coal-gas  issuing  from  nearly  a  thousand  burners,"  proceeds: 
"This  grand  application  of  the  new  principle  satisfied  the  public  mind, 
not  only  of  the  practicability,  but  also  of  the  economy  of  the  applica- 
tion ;  and,  as  a  mark  of  the  high  opinion  they  entertained  of  his  genius 
and  perseverance,  and  in  order  to  put  the  question  of  priority  of  the 
discovery  beyond  all  doubt,  the  Council  of  the  Koyal  Society,  in  1808, 
awarded  to  Mr.  Murdock  the  gold  medal  founded  by  the  late  Count 
Eumford. 


Manly  on  Murdoch.  143 

lieve  were  chiefly  to  be  ascribed  to  the  admirable  in- 
ventive power  and  common-sense  genius  of  William 
Murdock,  made  me  feel  that  I  was,  indeed,  on  classic 
ground  in  regard  to  everything  connected  with  the 
construction  of  steam-engine  machinery.  The  interest 
was  in  no  small  degree  enhanced  by  coming  every  now 
and  then  upon  some  machine  that  had  every  historical 
claim  to  be  regarded  as  the  prototype  of  many  of  our 
modern  machine  tools.  All  these  had  William  Mur- 
dock's  genius  stamped  upon  them,  by  reason  of  their 
common-sense  arrangements,  which  showed  that  he 
was  one  of  those  original  thinkers  who  had  the  cour- 
age to  break  away  from  the  trammels  of  traditional 
methods,  and  take  short  cuts  to  accomplish  his  objects 
by  direct  and  simple  means." 

We  have  another  recollection  of  William  Murdock 
from  one  who  knew  him  when  a  boy.  This  is  the  ven- 
erable Charles  Manby,  F.R.S.,  still  honorary  secretary 
of  the  Institute  of  Civil  Engineers.  He  says  (writing 
to  us  in  September,  1883) :  "  I  see  from  the  public  prints 
that  you  have  been  presiding  at  a  meeting  intended  to 
do  honor  to  the  memory  of  William  Murdock — a  most 
worthy  man  and  an  old  friend  of  mine.  When  he 
found  me  working  the  first  slide-valve  ever  introduced 
into  an  engine-building  establishment  at  Horsley,  he 
patted  me  on  the  head,  and  said  to  my  father,  'Neigh- 
bor Manby,  this  is  not  the  way  to  bring  up  a  good 
workman — merely  turning  a  handle,  without  any  shoul- 
der work.'  He  evidently  did  not  anticipate  any  great 
results  from  my  engineering  education.  But  we  all 
know  what  machine  tools  are  doing  now — and  where 
should  we  be  without  them?" 

Watt  withdrew  from  the  firm  in  1800,  on  the  expiry 
of  his  patent  for  the  condensing  steam-engine  ;  but 
Boulton  continued  until  the  year  1809,  when  he  died 
full  of  years  and  honors.     Watt  lived  pn  until  1819. 


144  William  Murdoch. 

The  last  part  of  his  life  was  the  happiest.  During  the 
time  that  he  was  in  the  throes  of  his  invention,  he  was 
very  miserable,  weighed  down  with  dyspepsia  and  sick- 
headaches.  But  after  his  patent  had  expired,  he  was 
able  to  retire  with  a  moderate  fortune,  and  began  to 
enjoy  life.  Before,  he  had  "  cursed  his  inventions," 
now  he  could  bless  them.  He  was  able  to  survey 
them,  and  find  out  what  was  right  and  what  was 
wrong.  He  employed  his  head  and  his  hands  in  his 
private  workshop,  and  found  many  means  of  enjoying 
both  pleasantly.  Murdock  continued  to  be  his  fast 
friend,  and  they  spent  many  agreeable  hours  together. 
They  made  experiments  and  devised  improvements  in 
machines.  Watt  wished  to  make  things  more  simple. 
He  said  to  Murdock,  "it  is  a  great  thing  to  know  what 
to  do  icithout.  We  must  have  a  book  of  blots — things 
to  be  scratched  out."  One  of  the  most  interesting 
schemes  of  Watt  towards  the  end  of  his  life  was  the 
contrivance  of  a  sculpture-making  machine;  and  he 
proceeded  so  far  with  it  as  to  be  able  to  present  cop- 
ies of  busts  to  his  friends  as  "the  productions  of  a 
young  artist  just  entering  his  eighty-third  year."  The 
machine,  however,  remained  unfinished  at  his  death, 
and  the  remarkable  fact  is  that  it  was  Watt's  only  un- 
finished work. 

The  principle  of  the  machine  was  to  carry  a  guide- 
point  at  one  side  over  the  bust  or  alto-relievo  to  be 
copied,  and  at  the  other  side  to  carry  a  corresponding 
cutting-tool  or  drill  over  the  alabaster,  ivory,  jet,  or 
plaster  of  Paris  to  be  executed.  The  machine  worked, 
as  it  were,  with  two  hands,  the  one  feeling  the  pattern, 
the  other  cutting  the  material  into  the  required  form. 
Many  new  alterations  were  necessary  for  carrying  out 
this  ingenious  apparatus,  and  Murdock  was  always  at 
hand  to  give  his  old  friend  and  master  his  best  assist- 
ance.    We  have  seen  many  original  letters  from  Watt 


WatCs  Sculpture  Machine.  145 

to  Murdock,  asking  for  counsel  and  help.  In  one  of 
these,  written  in  1808,  "Watt  says  :  "I  have  revived  an 
idea  which,  if  it  answers,  will  supersede  the  frame  and 
upright  spindle  of  the  reducing  machine,  but  more  of 
this  when  we  meet.  Meanwhile  it  will  be  proper  to 
adhere  to  the  frame,  etc.,  at  present,  until  we  see  how 
the  other  alterations  answer."  In  another  he  says:  "I 
have  done  a  Cicero  without  any  plaits — the  different 
segments  meeting  exactly.  The  fitting  the  drills  into 
the  spindle  by  a  taper  of  one  in  six  will  do.  They  are 
perfectly  stiff,  and  will  not  unscrew  easily.  Four  guide- 
pulleys  answer,  but  there  must  be  a  pair  for  the  other 
end,  and  to  work  with  a  single  hand,  for  the  returning 
part  is  always  cut  upon  some  part  or  other  of  the 
frame." 

These  letters  are  written  sometimes  in  the  morning, 
sometimes  at  noon,  sometimes  at  night.  There  was  a 
great  deal  of  correspondence  about  "pulleys,"  which 
did  not  seem  to  answer  at  first.  "  I  have  made  the 
tablets,"  said  Watt  on  one  occasion,  "  slide  more  easi- 
ly, and  can  counterbalance  any  part  of  their  weight 
which  may  be  necessary ;  but  the  first  thing  to  try  is 
the  solidity  of  the  machine,  which  cannot  be  done  till 
the  pulleys  are  mounted."  Then  again :  "  The  bust- 
making  must  be  given  up  until  we  get  a  more  solid 
frame.  I  have  worked  two  days  at  one  and  spoiled 
it,  principally  from  the  want  of  steadiness."  For 
"Watt,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  now  a  very  old 
man. 

He  then  proceeded  to  send  Murdock  the  drawing  of 
a  "parallel  motion  for  the  machine,"  to  be  executed 
by  the  workmen  at  Soho.  The  truss  braces  and  the 
crosses  were  to  be  executed  of  steel,  according  to  the 
details  he  enclosed.  "  I  have  warmed  up,"  he  con- 
cludes, "  an  old  idea,  and  can  make  a  machine  in  which 
the  pentagraph  and  the  leading  screw  will  all  be  con- 


146  William  Murdoch 

tained  in  the  beam,  and  the  pattern  and  piece  to  be  cut 
will  remain  at  rest  fixed  upon  a  lath  of  cast  iron  or 
stout  steel."  Watt  is  very  particular  in  all  his  details: 
"I  am  sorry,"  he  says  in  one  note,  "  to  trouble  you  with 
so  many  things;  but  the  alterations  on  this  spindle  and 
socket  [he  annexes  a  drawing]  may  wait  your  conven- 
ience." In  a  further  note,  Watt  says:  "The  drawing 
for  the  parallel  lathe  is  ready;  but  I  have  been  sadly 
puzzled  about  the  application  of  the  leading  screws  to 
the  cranes  in  the  other.  I  think,  however,  I  have  now 
got  the  better  of  the  difficulties,  and  made  it  more  cer- 
tain, as  well  as  more  simple,  than  it  was.  I  have  done 
an  excellent  head  of  John  Hunter  in  hard  white  in 
shorter  time  than  usual.  I  want  to  show  it  you  be- 
fore I  repair  it." 

At  last  Watt  seems  to  have  become  satisfied:  "The 
lathe,"  he  says,  "  is  very  much  improved,  and  you  seem 
to  have  given  the  finishing  blow  to  the  roofed  frame, 
which  appears  perfectly  stiff.  I  had  some  hours'  in- 
tense thinking  upon  the  machine  last  night,  and  have 
made  up  my  mind  on  it  at  last.  The  great  difficulty 
was  about  the  application  of  the  band,  but  I  have  set- 
tled it  to  be  much  as  at  present." 

Watt's  letters  to  Murdock  are  most  particular  in 
details,  especially  as  to  screws,  nuts,  and  tubes,  with 
strengths  and  dimensions,  always  illustrated  with  pen- 
and-ink  drawings.  And  yet  all  this  was  done  merely 
for  mechanical  amusement,  and  not  for  any  personal 
pecuniary  advantage.  While  Watt  was  making  ex- 
periments as  to  the  proper  substances  to  be  carved 
and  drilled,  he  also  desired  Murdock  to  make  similar 
experiments.  "  The  nitre,"  he  said  in  one  note,  "  seems 
to  do  harm;  the  fluor' composition  seems  the  best  and 
hardest.  Query,  what  would  some  calcined  pipe-clay 
do  ?  If  you  will  calcine  some  fire-clay  by  a  red  heat 
and  pound  it — about  a  pound — and  send  it  to  me,  I 


Watt's  Correspondence.  147 

shall  try  to  make  you  a  mould  or  two  in  Henning's 
maimer  to  cast  this  and  the  sulphur  acid  iron  in.  I 
have  made  a  screwing  tool  for  wood  that  seems  to  an- 
swer ;  also  one  of  a  one-tenth  diameter  for  marble, 
which  does  very  well."  In  another  note,  "Watt  says  : 
"  I  find  my  drill  readily  makes  two  thousand  four  hun- 
dred turns  per  minute,  even  with  the  large  drill  you 
sent  last ;  if  I  bear  lightly,  a  three-quarter  f  erril  would 
run  about  three  thousand,  and  by  an  engine  that  might 
be  doubled." 

The  materials  to  be  drilled  into  medallions  also  re- 
quired much  consideration.  "I  am  much  obliged  to 
you,"  said  Watt,  "for  the  balls,  etc.,  which  answer  as 
well  as  can  be  expected.  They  make  great  progress 
in  cutting  the  crust  (Ridgways)  or  alabaster,  and  also 
cut  marble,  but  the  harder  sorts  soon  blunt  them.  At 
any  rate,  marble  does  not  do  for  the  medallions,  as  its 
grain  prevents  its  being  cut  smooth,  and  its  semi-trans- 
parence hurts  the  effect.  I  think  Bristol  lime,  or  shell 
lime,  pressed  in  your  manner,  would  have  a  good  effect. 
When  you  are  at  leisure,  I  shall  thank  you  for  a  few 
pieces,  and  if  some  of  them  are  made  pink  or  flesh 
color,  they  will  look  well.  I  used  the  ball  quite  per- 
pendicular, and  it  cut  well,  as  most  of  the  cutting  is 
sideways.  I  tried  a  fine  whirling  point,  but  it  made 
little  progress;  another  with  a  chisel  edge  did  almost 
as  well  as  the  balls,  but  did  not  work  so  pleasantly.  I 
find  a  triangular  scraping  point  the  best,  and  I  think 
from  some  trials  it  should  be  quite  a  sharp  point.  The 
wheel  runs  easier  than  it  did,  but  has  still  too  much 
friction.  I  wished  to  have  had  an  hour's  consultation 
with  you,  but  have  been  prevented  by  sundry  matters, 
among  others  by  that  plaguey  stove,  which  is  now  in 
your  hands." 

Watt  was  most  grateful  to  Murdock  for  his  unvary- 
ing assistance.     In  January,  1813,  when  Watt  was  in 


148  William  Murdoch, 

his  seventy-seventh  year,  he  wrote  to  Murdock,  asking 
him  to  accept  a  present  of  a  lathe.  "  I  have  not  heard 
from  you,"  he  says,  "in  reply  to  my  letter  about  the 
lathe ;  and,  presuming  you  are  not  otherwise  provided, 
I  have  bought  it,  and  request  your  acceptance  of  it. 
At  present,  an  alteration  for  the  better  is  making  in 
the  oval  chuck,  and  a  few  additional  chucks,  rest,  etc., 
are  making  to  the  lathe.  When  these  are  finished,  I 
shall  have  it  at  Billinger's  until  you  return,  or  as  you 
otherwise  direct.  I  am  going  on  with  my  drawings 
for  a  complete  machine,  and  shall  be  glad  to  see  you 
here  to  judge  of  them." 

The  drawings  were  made,  but  the  machine  was  never 
finished.  "  Invention,"  said  "Watt,  "  goes  on  very 
slowly  with  me  now."  Four  years  later,  he  was  still 
at  work  ;  but  death  put  a  stop  to  his  "  diminishing- 
machine."  It  is  a  remarkable  testimony  to  the  skill 
and  perseverance  of  a  man  who  had  already  accom- 
plished so  much,  that  it  was  his  only  unfinished  work. 
Watt  died  in  1819,  in  the  eighty- third  year  of  his  age, 
to  the  great  grief  of  Murdock,  his  oldest  and  most 
attached  friend  and  correspondent. 

Meanwhile,  the  firm  of  Boulton  &  Watt  continued. 
The  sons  of  the  two  partners  carried  it  on,  with  Mur- 
dock as  their  mentor.  He  was  still  full  of  work  and 
inventive  power.  In  1802,  he  applied  the  compressed 
air  of  the  blast-engine  employed  to  blow  the  cupolas 
of  the  Soho  Foundery,  for  the  purpose  of  driving  the 
lathe  in  the  pattern  shop.  It  worked  a  small  engine, 
with  a  twelve-inch  cylinder  and  eighteen-inch  stroke, 
connected  with  the  lathe,  the  speed  being  regulated  as 
required  by  varying  the  admission  of  the  blast.  This 
engine  continued  in  use  for  about  thirty-five  years.  In 
1803  Murdock  experimented  on  the  power  of  high- 
pressure  steam  in  propelling  shot,  and  contrived  a 
steam-engine  with  which  he   made   many   trials  at 


Uses  of  Compressed  Air.  149 

Soho,  thereby  anticipating  the  apparatus  contrived  by- 
Mr.  Perkins  many  years  later. 

In  1810  Murdock  took  out  a  patent  for  boring  steam- 
pipes  for  water,  and  cutting  columns  out  of  solid  blocks 
of  stone,  by  means  of  a  cylindrical  crown  saw.  The 
first  machine  was  used  at  Soho,  and  afterwards  at  Mr. 
Rennie's  Works  in  London,  and  proved  quite  success- 
ful. Among  his  other  inventions  were  a  lift  worked 
by  compressed  air,  which  raised  and  lowered  the  cast- 
ings from  the  boring-mill  to  the  level  of  the  foundery 
and  the  canal  bank.  He  used  the  same  kind  of  power 
to  ring  the  bells  in  his  house  at  Sycamore  Hill,  and  the 
contrivance  was  afterwards  adopted  by  Sir  "Walter 
Scott  in  his  house  at  Abbotsford. 

Murdock  was  also  the  inventor  of  the  well-known 
cast-iron  cement,  so  extensively  used  in  engine  and 
machine  work.  The  manner  in  which  he  was  led  to 
this  invention  affords  a  striking  illustration  of  his 
quickness  of  observation.  Finding  that  some  iron- 
borings  and  sal-ammoniac  had  got  accidentally  mixed 
together  in  his  tool-chest,  and  rusted  his  saw-blade 
nearly  through,  he  took  note  of  the  circumstance, 
mixed  the  articles  in  various  proportions,  and  at 
length  arrived  at  the  famous  cement,  which  eventu- 
ally became  an  article  of  extensive  manufacture  at  the 
Soho  Works. 

Murdock's  ingenuity  was  constantly  at  work,  even 
upon  matters  which  lay  entirely  outside  his  special 
vocation.  The  late  Sir  William  Fairbairn  informed 
us  that  he  contrived  a  variety  of  curious  machines  for 
consolidating  peat  moss,  finely  ground  and  pulverized, 
under  immense  pressure,  and  which,  when  consolidat- 
ed, could  be  moulded  into  beautiful  medals,  armlets, 
and  necklaces.  The  material  took  the  most  brilliant 
polish  and  had  the  appearance  of  the  finest  jet. 

Observing  that  fish-skins  might  be  used  as  an  eco- 


150  William  Murdoch. 

nomical  substitute  for  isinglass,  he  went  up  to  London 
on  one  occasion  in  order  to  explain  to  brewers  the  best 
method  of  preparing  and  using  them.  He  occupied 
handsome  apartments,  and,  little  regarding  the  splen- 
dor of  the  drawing-room,  he  hung  the  fish-skins  up 
against  the  walls.  His  landlady  caught  him  one  day 
when  he  was  about  to  hang  up  a  wet  cod's  skin  !  He 
was  turned  out  at  once,  with  all  his  fish. 

While  in  town  on  this  errand,  it  occurred  to  him 
that  a  great  deal  of  power  was  wasted  in  treading  the 
streets  of  London  !  He  conceived  the  idea  of  using 
the  streets  and  roadways  as  a  grand  treadmill,  under 
which  the  waste  power  might  be  stored  up  by  mechan- 
ical methods  and  turned  to  account.  He  had  also  an 
idea  of  storing  up  the  power  of  the  tides  and  of  run- 
ning water,  in  the  same  way.  The  late  Sir  Charles 
Babbage  entertained  a  similar  idea  about  using  the 
hot  springs  of  Ischia  or  of  the  geysers  of  Iceland  as 
a  power  necessary  for  condensing  gases,  or  perhaps 
for  the  storage  of  electricity.*  The  latter,  when  per- 
fected, will  probably  be  the  greatest  invention  of  the 
next  half  century. 

Another  of  Murdock's  ingenious  schemes  was  his 
proposed  method  of  transmitting  letters  and  packages 
through  a  tube  exhausted  by  an  air-pump.  This  proj- 
ect led  to  the  atmospheric  railway,  the  success  of 
which,  so  far  as  it  went,  was  due  to  the  practical  abil- 
ity of  Murdock's  pupil,  Samuel  Clegg.  Although  the 
atmospheric  railway  was  eventually  abandoned,  it  is 
remarkable  that  the  original  idea  was  afterwards  re- 

*  "  Thus,"  sa)rs  Sir  Charles  Babbage,  "in  a  future  age,  power  may 
become  the  staple  commodity  of  the  Icelanders,  and  of  the  inhabitants 
of  other  volcanic  districts ;  and  possibly  the  very  process  by  which 
they  will  procure  this  article  of  exchange  for  the  luxuries  of  happier 
climates  may,  in  some  measure,  tame  the  tremendous  element  which 
occasionally  devastates  their  provinces." — Economy  of  Manufactures. 


Engines  for  Steamboats.  151 

vived  and  practised  with  success  by  the  London  Pneu- 
matic Dispatch  Company. 

In  1815,  while  Murdock  was  engaged  in  erecting  an 
apparatus  of  his  own  invention  for  heating  the  water 
for  the  baths  at  Leamington,  a  ponderous  cast  -  iron 
plate  fell  upon  his  leg  above  his  ankle,  and  severely 
injured  him.  He  remained  a  long  while  at  Leaming- 
ton, and  when  it  was  thought  safe  to  remove  him,  the 
Birmingham  Canal  Company  kindly  placed  their  ex- 
cursion boat  at  his  disposal,  and  he  was  conveyed 
safely  homeward.  So  soon  as  he  was  able,  he  was  at 
work  again  at  the  Soho  factory. 

Although  the  elder  Watt  had  to  a  certain  extent 
ignored  the  uses  of  steam  as  applied  to  navigation, 
being  too  much  occupied  with  developing  the  powers 
of  the  pumping  and  rotary  engine,  the  young  partners, 
with  the  stout  aid  of  Murdock,  took  up  the  question. 
They  supplied  Fulton  in  1807  with  his  first  engine,  by 
means  of  which  the  Clermont  made  her  first  voyage 
along  the  Hudson  River.  They  also  supplied  Fulton 
&  Livingston  with  the  next  two  engines  for  the  Car 
of  Neptune  and  the  Paragon.  From  that  time  for- 
ward, Boulton  &  Watt  devoted  themselves  to  the 
manufacture  of  engines  for  steamboats.  Up  to  the 
year  1814  marine  engines  had  been  all  applied  singly 
in  the  vessel;  but  in  this  year  .Boulton  &  Watt  first 
applied  two  condensing  engines,  connected  by  cranks 
set  at  right  angles  on  the  shaft,  to  propel  a  steamer  on 
the  Clyde.  Since  then,  nearly  all  steamers  are  fitted 
with  two  engines.  In  making  this  important  improve- 
ment, the  firm? were  materially  aided  by  the  mechan- 
ical genius  of  William  Murdock,  and  also  of  Mr. 
Brown,  then  an  assistant,  but  afterwards  a  member 
of  the  firm. 

In  order  to  carry  on  a  set  of  experiments  with  re- 
spect to  the  most  improved  form  of  marine  engine, 


152  William  Murdoch. 

Boulton  &  Watt  purchased  the  Caledonia,  a  Scotch 
boat  built  on  the  Clyde  by  James  Wood  &  Co.,  of 
Port  Glasgow.  The  engines  and  boilers  were  taken 
out.  The  vessel  was  fitted  with  two  side-lever  en- 
gines, and  many  successive  experiments  were  made 
with  her  down  to  August,  1817,  at  an  expense  of 
about  £10,000.  This  led  to  a  settled  plan  of  con- 
struction, by  which  marine  engines  were  greatly  im- 
proved. James  Watt,  junior,  accompanied  the  Cale- 
donia to  Holland  and  up  the  Rhine.  The  vessel  was 
eventually  sold  to  the  Danish  government,  and  used 
for  carrying  the  mails  between  Kiel  and  Copenhagen. 
It  is,  however,  unnecessary  here  to  venture  upon  the 
further  history  of  steam  navigation. 

In  the  midst  of  these  repeated  inventions  and  ex- 
periments, Murdock  was  becoming  an  old  man.  Yet 
he  never  ceased  to  take  an  interest  in  the  works  at 
Soho.  At  length  his  faculties  experienced  a  gradual 
decay,  and  he  died  peacefully  at  his  house  at  Syca- 
more Hill,  on  the  15th  of  November,  1839,  in  his 
eighty-fifth  year.  He  was  buried  near  the  remains 
of  the  great  Boulton  and  Watt ;  and  a  bust  by  Chant- 
rey  served  to  perpetuate  the  remembrance  of  his  man- 
ly and  intelligent  countenance. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

FREDERICK  KOENIG, 
INVENTOR    OF   THE    STEAM  PRINTING   MACHINE. 

"The  honest  projector  is  he  who,  having  by  fair  and  plain  princi- 
ples of  sense,  honesty,  and  ingenuity,  brought  any  contrivance  to  a 
suitable  perfection,  makes  out  what  he  pretends  to,  picks  nobody's 
pocket,  puts  his  project  in  execution,  and  contents  himself  with  the 
real  produce  as  the  profit  of  his  invention." — De  Eoe. 

I  published  an  article  in  Macmillarts  Magazine,  for 
December,  1869,  under  the  above  title.  The  materials 
were  principally  obtained  from  William  and  Frederick 
Koenig,  sons  of  the  inventor.  Since  then  an  elaborate 
life  has  been  published  at  Stuttgart,  under  the  title  of 
"Friederich  Koenig  und  die  Erfindung  der  Schnell- 
presse,  ein  Biographisches  Denkmal.  Von  Theodor 
Goebel."  The  author,  in  sending  me  a  copy  of  the 
volume,  refers  to  the  article  published  in  Macmillan, 
and  says,  "I  hope  you  will  please  to  accept  it  as  a 
small  acknowledgment  of  the  thanks  which  every 
German,  and  especially  the  sons  of  Koenig,  in  whose 
name  I  send  the  book  as  well  as  in  mine,  owe  to  you 
for  having  bravely  taken  up  the  cause  of  the  much- 
wronged  inventor,  their  father — an  action  all  the  more 
praiseworthy,  as  you  had  to  write  against  the  preju- 
dices and  the  interests  of  your  own  countrymen." 

I  believe  it  is  now  generally  admitted  that  Koenig 
was  entitled  to  the  merit  of  being  the  first  person 
practically  to  apply  the  power  of  steam  to  indefinite- 
ly multiplying  the  productions  of  the  printing-press  ; 

*7* 


154  Frederick  Koenig. 

and  that  no  one  now  attempts  to  deny  him  this  honor. 
It  is  true  others,  who  followed  him,  greatly  improved 
upon  his  first  idea  ;  but  this  was  the  case  with  Watt, 
Symington,  Crompton,  Maudslay,  and  many  more. 
The  true  inventor  is  not  merely  the  man  who  regis- 
ters an  idea  and  takes  a  patent  for  it,  or  who  compiles 
an  invention  by  borrowing  the  idea  of  another,  im- 
proving upon  or  adding  to  his  arrangements,  but  the 
man  who  constructs  a  machine  such  as  has  never  be- 
fore been  made,  and  which  executes  satisfactorily  all 
the  functions  it  was  intended  to  perform.  And  this  is 
what  Koenig's  invention  did,  as  will  be  observed  from 
the  following  brief  summary  of  his  life  and  labors. 

Frederick  Koenig  was  born  on  the  17th  of  April, 
1774,  at  Eisleben,  in  Saxony,  the  birthplace  also  of  a 
still  more  famous  person,  Martin  Luther.  His  father 
was  a  respectable  peasant  proprietor,  described  by  Herr 
Goebel  as  Anspanner.  But  this  word  has  now  gone 
out  of  use.  In  feudal  times  it  described  the  farmer 
who  was  obliged  to  keep  draught-cattle  to  perform 
service  due  to  the  landlord.  The  boy  received  a  solid 
education  at  the  gymnasium,  or  public  school  of  the 
town.  At  proper  age  he  was  bound  apprentice  for 
five  years  to  Breitkopf  &  Hartel,  of  Leipzig,  as  com- 
positor and  printer;  but,  after  serving  for  four  and  a 
quarter  years,  he  was  released  from  his  engagement 
because  of  his  exceptional  skill,  which  was  an  unusual 
occurrence. 

During  the  later  years  of  his  apprenticeship,  Koenig 
was  permitted  to  attend  the  classes  of  the  university, 
more  especially  those  of  Ernst  Platner,  "physician, 
philosopher,  and  anthropologist."  After  that  he  pro- 
ceeded to  the  printing- office  of  his  uncle,  Anton  F. 
Rose,  at  Greif  swald,  an  old  seaport  town  on  the  Baltic, 
where  he  remained  a  few  years.  He  next  went  to  Halle 
as  a -journeyman  printer  —  German  workmen  going 


Improvements  in  Printing.  155 

about  from  place  to  place,  during  their  ivcmdersc/toj't, 
for  the  purpose  of  learning  their  business.  After  that 
he  returned  to  Breitkopf  &  Hartel,  at  Leipzig,  where 
he  had  first  learned  his  trade.  During  this  time,  hav- 
ing saved  a  little  money,  he  enrolled  himself  for  a  year 
as  a  regular  student  at  the  University  of  Leipzig. 

According  to  Koenig's  own  account,  he  first  began 
to  devise  ways  and  means  for  improving  the  art  of 
printing  in  the  year  1802,  when  he  was  twenty-eight 
years  old.  Printing  large  sheets  of  paper  by  hand  was 
a  very  slow  as  well  as  a  very  laborious  process.  One 
of  the  things  that  most  occupied  the  young  printer's 
mind  was,  how  to  get  rid  of  this  "  horse-work,"  for 
such  it  was,  in  the  business  of  printing.  He  was  not, 
however,  overburdened  with  means,  though  he  devised 
a  machine  with  this  object.  But,  to  make  a  little  mon- 
ey, he  made  translations  for  the  publishers.  In  1803, 
Koenig  returned  to  his  native  town  of  Eisleben,  where 
he  entered  into  an  arrangement  with  Frederick  Riedel, 
who  furnished  the  necessary  capital  for  carrying  on 
the  business  of  a  printer  and  bookseller.  Koenig  al- 
leges that  his  reason  for  adopting  this  step  was  to  raise 
sufficient  money  to  enable  him  to  carry  out  his  plans 
for  the  improvement  of  printing. 

The  business,  however,  did  not  succeed,  as  we  find 
him  in  the  following  year  carrying  on  a  printing  trade 
at  Mayence.  Having  sold  this  business,  he  removed 
to  Suhl,  in  Thuringia.  Here  he  was  occupied  with  a 
stereotyping  process,  suggested  by  what  he  had  read 
about  the  art  as  perfected  in  England  by  Earl  Stan- 
hope. He  also  contrived  an  improved  press,  provided 
with  a  movable  carriage,  on  which  the  types  were  placed, 
with  inking-rollers,  and  a  new  mechanical  method  of 
taking  off  the  impression  by  flat  pressure. 

Koenig  brought  his  new  machine  under  the  notice 
of  the  leading  printers  in  Germany,  but  they  would 


156  Frederick  Koenig. 

not  undertake  to  use  it.  The  plan  seemed  to  them  too 
complicated  and  costly.  He  tried  to  enlist  men  of 
capital  in  his  scheme,  but  they. all  turned  a  deaf  ear 
to  him.  He  went  from  town  to  town,  but  could  ob- 
tain no  encouragement  whatever.  Besides,  industrial 
enterprise  in  Germany  was  then  in  a  measure  para- 
lyzed by  the  impending  war  with  France,  and  men  of 
capital  were  naturally  averse  to  risk  their  money  on 
what  seemed  a  merely  speculative  undertaking. 

Finding  no  sympathizers  or  helpers  at  home,  Koe- 
nig next  turned  his  attention  abroad.  England  was 
then,  as  now,  the  refuge  of  inventors  who  could  not 
find  the  means  of  bringing  out  their  schemes  else- 
where; and  to  England  he  wistfully  turned  his  eyes. 
In  the  meantime,  however,  his  inventive  ability  having 
become  known,  an  offer  was  made  to  him  by  the  Rus- 
sian government  to  proceed  to  St.  Petersburg  and  or- 
ganize the  state  printing-office  there.  The  invitation 
was  accepted,  and  Koenig  proceeded  to  St.  Petersburg 
in  the  spring  of  1806.  But  the  official  difficulties 
thrown  in  his  way  were  so  great,  and  so  disgusted 
him,  that  he  decided  to  throw  up  his  appointment, 
and  try  his  fortune  in  England.  He  accordingly  took 
ship  for  London,  and  arrived  there  in  the  following 
November,  poor  in  means,  but  rich  in  his  great  idea, 
then  his  only  property. 

As  Koenig  himself  said,  when  giving  an  account  of 
his  invention,  "There  is  on  the  Continent  no  sort  of 
encouragement  for  an  enterprise  of  this  description. 
The  system  of  patents,  as  it  exists  in  England,  being 
either  unknown  or  not  adopted  in  the  Continental 
states,  there  is  no  inducement  for  industrial  enterprise, 
and  projectors  are  commonly  obliged  to  offer  their 
discoveries  to  some  government,  and  to  solicit  their 
encouragement.  I  need  hardly  add  that  scarcely  ever 
is  an  invention  brought  to  maturity  under  such  cir- 


Koenig  in  London.  157 

cumstances.  The  well-known  fact  that  almost  every 
invention  seeks,  as  it  were,  refuge  in  England,  and  is 
there  brought  to  perfection,  though  the  government 
does  not  afford  any  other  protection  to  inventors  be- 
yond what  is  derived  from  the  wisdom  of  the  laws, 
seems  to  indicate  that  the  Continent  has  yet  to  learn 
from  her  the  best  manner  of  encouraging  the  mechan- 
ical arts.  I  had  my  full  share  in  the  ordinary  disap- 
pointments of  Continental  projectors;  and,  after  hav- 
ing lost  in  Germany  and  Russia  upwards  of  two  years 
in  fruitless  applications,  I  at  last  resorted  to  Eng- 
land." * 

After  arriving  in  London,  Koenig  maintained  him- 
self with  difficulty  by  working  at  his  trade,  for  his 
comparative  ignorance  of  the  English  language  stood 
in  his  way.  But  to  work  manually  at  the  printer's 
"case"  was  not  Koenig's  object  in  coming  to  Eng- 
land. His  idea  of  a  printing-machine  was  always  up- 
permost in  his  mind,  and  he  lost  no  opportunity  of 
bringing  the  subject  under  the  notice  of  master  print- 
ers likely  to  take  it  up.  He  worked  for  a  time  in  the 
printing-office  of  Richard  Taylor,  Shoe  Lane,  Fleet 
Street,  and  mentioned  the  matter  to  him.  Taylor 
would  not  undertake  the  invention  himself,  but  he  fur- 
nished Koenig  with  an  introduction  to  Thomas  Bens- 
ley,  the  well-known  printer  of  Bolt  Court,  Fleet  Street. 
On  the  11th  of  March,  1807,  Bensley  invited  Koenig 
to  meet  him  on  the  subject  of  their  recent  conversa- 
tion about  "the  discovery;"  and  on  the  31st  of  the 
same  month  the  following  agreement  was  entered  into 
between  Koenig  and  Bensley: 

"  Mr.  Koenig,  having  discovered  an  entire  new  Meth- 
od of  Printing  by  Machinery,  agrees  to  communicate 

*  Koenig's  letter  in  The  Times,  8th  of  December,  1814. 


15S  Frederick  Koenig. 

the  same  to  Mr.  Bensley  under  the  following  condi- 
tions: that,  if  Mr.  Bensley  shall  be  satisfied  the  Inven- 
tion will  answer  all  the  purposes  Mr.  Koenig  has  stated 
in  the  Particulars  he  has  delivered  to  Mr.  Bensley, 
signed  with  his  name,  he  shall  enter  into  a  legal  En- 
gagement to  purchase  the  Secret  from  Mr.  Koenig,  or 
enter  into  such  other  agreement  as  may  be  deemed 
mutually  beneficial  to  both  parties  ;  or,  should  Mr. 
Bensley  wish  to  decline  having  any  concern  with  the 
said  Invention,  then  he  engages  not  to  make  any  use 
of  the  Machinery,  or  to  communicate  the  Secret  to 
any  person  whatsoever,  until  it  is  proved  that  the  In- 
vention is  made  use  of  by  any  one  without  restriction 
of  Patent,  or  other  particular  agreement  on  the  part 
of  Mr.  Koenig,  under  the  penalty  of  Six  Thousand 
Pounds. 

"  (Signed)         T.  Bensley, 

"Feiedekich  Konig. 
"  Witness — J.  Hunneman." 

Koenig  now  proceeded  to  put  his  idea  in  execution. 
He  prepared  his  plans  of  the  new  printing  machine. 
It  seems,  however,  that  the  progress  made  by  him  was 
very  slow.  Indeed,  three  years  passed  before  a  work- 
ing model  could  be  got  ready,  to  show  his  idea  in  act- 
ual practice.  In  the  meantime,  Mr.  Walter,  of  The 
Times,  had  been  seen  by  Bensley,  and  consulted  on 
the  subject  of  the  invention.  On  the  9th  of  August, 
1809,  more  than  two  years  after  the  date  of  the  above 
agreement,  Bensley  writes  to  Koenig:  "I  made  a  point 
of  calling  upon  Mr.  Walter  yesterday,  who,  I  am  sorry 
to  say,  declines  our  proposition  altogether,  having  (as 
he  says)  so  many  engagements  as  to  prevent  him  en- 
tering into  more." 

It  may  be  mentioned  that  Koenig's  original  plan  was 
confined  to  an  improved  press,  in  which  the  operation 


The  First  Printing  Machine.  159 

of  laying  the  ink  on  the  types  was  to  be  performed  by 
an  apparatus  connected  with  the  motions  of  the  coffin, 
in  such  a  manner  as  that  one  hand  could  be  saved.  As 
little  could  be  gained  in  expedition  by  this  plan,  the 
idea  soon  suggested  itself  of  moving  the  press  by  ma- 
chinery, or  to  reduce  the  several  operations  to  one  ro- 
tary motion,  to  which  the  first  mover  might  be  applied. 
While  Koenig  was  in  the  throes  of  his  invention,  he 
was  joined  by  his  friend,  Andrew  F.  Bauer,  a  native 
of  Stuttgart,  who  possessed  considerable  mechanical 
power,  in  which  the  inventor  himself  was  probably 
somewhat  deficient.  At  all  events,  these  two  together 
proceeded  to  work  out  the  idea,  and  to  construct  the 
first  actual  working  printing  machine. 

A  patent  was  taken  out,  dated  the  29th  of  March, 

1810,  which  describes  the  details  of  the  invention. 
The  arrangement  was  somewhat  similar  to  that  known 
as  the  platen  machine,  the  printing  being  produced  by 
two  flat  plates,  as  in  the  common  hand-press.  It  also 
embodied  an  ingenious  arrangement  for  inking  the 
type.  Instead  of  the  old-fashioned  inking-balls,  which 
were  beaten  on  the  type  by  hand-labor,  several  cylin- 
ders covered  with  felt  and  leather  were  used,  and 
formed  part  of  the  machine  itself.  Two  of  the  cylin- 
ders revolved  in  opposite  directions,  so  as  to  spread 
the  ink,  which  was  then  transferred  by  two  other  ink- 
ing cylinders  alternately  applied  to  the  "form  "  by  the 
action  of  spiral  springs.  The  movement  of  all  the 
parts  of  the  machine  were  to  be  derived  from  a  steam- 
engine,  or  other  first  mover. 

"  After  many  obstructions  and  delays,"  says  Koenig 
himself,  in  describing  the  history  of  his  invention, 
"the  first  printing  machine  was  completed  exactly 
upon  the  plan  which  I  have  described  in  the  specifica- 
tion of  my  first  patent.     It  was  set  to  work  in  April, 

1811.  The  sheet  (H)  of  the  new '  Annual  Register '  for 


160  Frederick  Koenig. 

1810,  'Principal  Occurrences,' .three  thousand  copies, 
was  printed,  with  it;  and  is,  I  have  no  doubt,  the  first 
part  of  a  book  ever  printed  with  a  machine.  The  act- 
ual use  of  it,  however,  soon  suggested  new  ideas,  and 
led  to  the  rendering  it  less  complicated  and  more  pow- 
erful."* Of  course!  Ko  great  invention  was  ever 
completed  at  one  effort.  It  would  have  been  strange 
if  Koenig  had  been  satisfied  with  his  first  attempt.  It 
was  only  a  beginning,  and  he  naturally  proceeded  with 
the  improvement  of  his  machine.  It  took  Watt  more 
than  twenty  years  to  elaborate  his  condensing  steam- 
engine;  and  since  his  day,  owing  to  the  perfection  of 
self-acting  tools,  it  has  been  greatly  improved.  The 
power  of  the  steamboat  and  the  locomotive  also,  as 
well  as  of  all  other  inventions,  have  been  developed 
by  the  constantly  succeeding  improvements  of  a  na- 
tion of  mechanical  engineers. 

Koenig's  experiment  was  only  a  beginning,  and  he 
naturally  proceeded  with  the  improvement  of  his  ma- 
chine. Although  the  platen-machine  of  Koenig's  has 
since  been  taken  up  anew,  and  perfected,  it  was  not 
considered  by  him  sufficiently  simple  in  its  arrange- 
ments as  to  be  adapted  for  common  use;  and  he  had 
scarcely  completed  it  when  he  was  already  revolving 
in  his  mind  a  plan  of  a  second  machine  on  a  new  prin- 
ciple, with  the  object  of  insuring  greater  speed,  econ- 
omy, and  simplicity. 

By  this  time  other  well-known  London  printers, 
Messrs.  Taylor  &  Woodfall,  had  joined  Koenig  and 
Bensley  in  their  partnership  for  the  manufacture  and 
sale  of  printing  machines.  The  idea  which  now  oc- 
curred to  Koenig  was,  to  employ  a  cylinder  instead  of 
a  flat  platen-machine  for  taking  the  impressions  off 
the  type,  and  to  place  the  sheet  round  the  cylinder, 

*  Koenig's  letter  in  The  Times,  8th  of  December,  1814. 


The  Cylinder  Press.  161 

thereby  making  it,  as  it  were,  part  of  the  periphery. 
As  early  as  the  year  1790  one  William  Nicholson  had 
taken  out  a  patent  for  a  machine  for  printing  "  on 
paper,  linen,  cotton,  woollen,  and  other  articles,''  by 
means  of  "  blocks,  forms,  types,  plates,  and  originals," 
which  were  to  be  "firmly  imposed  upon  a  cylindrical 
surface  in  the  same  manner  as  common  letter  is  im- 
posed upon  a  flat  stone."*  From  the  mention  of  "col- 
oring cylinder,"  and  "  paper-hangings,  floor-cloths,  cot- 
tons, linens,  woollens,  leather,  skin,  and  every  other 
flexible  material,"  mentioned  in  the  specification,  it 
would  appear  as  if  Nicholson's  invention  were  adapted 
for  calico-printing  and  paper-hangings,  as  well  as  for 
the  printing  of  books.  But  it  was  never  used  for  any 
of  these  purposes.  It  contained  merely  the  register  of 
an  idea,  and  that  was  all.  It  was  left  for  Adam  Par- 
kinson, of  Manchester,  to  invent  and  make  practical 
use  of  the  cylinder  printing  machine  for  calico  in  the 
year  1805,  and  this  was  still  further  advanced  by  the 
invention  of  James  Thompson,  of  Clitheroe,  in  1813, 
while  it  was  left  for  Frederick  Koenig  to  invent  and 
carry  into  practical  operation  the  cylinder  printing- 
press  for  newspapers. 

After  some  promising  experiments,  the  plans  for  a 
new  machine  on  the  cylindrical  principle  were  pro- 
ceeded with.  Koenig  admitted  throughout  the  great 
benefit  he  derived  from  the  assistance  of  his  friend 
Bauer.  "By  the  judgment  and  precision,"  he  said, 
"with  which  he  executed  my  plans,  he  greatly  con- 
tributed to  my  success."  A  patent  was  taken  out  on 
October  30th,  1811,  and  the  new  machine  was  com- 
pleted in  December,  1812.  The  first  sheets  ever  print- 
ed with  an  entirely  cylindrical  press  were  sheets  G  and 
X  of  Clarkson's  "Life  of  Penn."     The  papers  of  the 

?'  ■  ■  '  — '  "  ~ ■ 

*  Date  of  patent,  29th  of  April,  1790,  No.  1748. 


162  Frederick  Koenig. 

Protestant  Union  were  also  printed  with  it  in  Febru- 
ary and  March,  1813.  Mr.  Koenig,  in  his  account  of 
the  invention,  says  that  "  sheet  M  of  Acton's  'Hortus 
Kewensis,'  vol.  v.,  will  show  the  progress  of  improve- 
ment in  the  use  of  the  invention.  Altogether,  there 
are  about  one  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  sheets  now 
in  the  hands  of  the  public  printed  with  this  machine, 
which,  with  the  aid  of  two  hands,  takes  off  eight  hun- 
dred impressions  in  the  hour."* 

Koenig  took  out  a  further  patent  on  July  23d,  1813, 
and  a  fourth  (the  last)  on  the  14th  of  March,  1814. 
The  contrivance  of  these  various  arrangements  cost 
the  inventor  many  anxious  days  and  nights  of  study 
and  labor.  But  he  saw  before  him  only  the  end  he 
wished  to  compass,  and  thought  but  little  of  himself 
and  his  toils.  It  may  be  mentioned  that  the  principal 
feature  of  the  invention  was  the  printing-cylinder  in 
the  centre  of  the  machine,  by  which  the  impression 
was  taken  from  the  types,  instead  of  by  flat  plates,  as 
in  the  first  arrangement.  The  form  was  fixed  in  a 
cast-iron  plate,  which  was  carried  to  and  fro  on  a 
table,  being  received  at  either  end  by  strong  spiral 
springs.  A  double  machine,  on  the  same  principle — 
the  form  alternately  passing  under  and  giving  an  im- 
pression at  one  of  two  cylinders  at  either  end  of  the 
press — was  also  included  in  the  patent  of  1811. 

How  diligently  Koenig  continued  to  elaborate  the 
details  of  his  invention  will  be  obvious  from  the  two 
last  patents  which  he  took  out,  in  1813  and  1814.  In 
the  first  he  introduced  an  important  improvement  in 
the  inking  arrangement,  and  a  contrivance  for  holding 
and  carrying  on  the  sheet,  keeping  it  close  to  the  print- 
ing-cylinder by  means  of  endless  tapes  ;  while  in  the 
second  he  added  the  following  new  expedients:  a  feed- 

*  Koenig's  letter  in  The  Times,  8th  of  December,  1814. 


The  Steam  Press  Needed.  163 

er,  consisting  of  an  endless  web,  an  improved  arrange- 
ment of  the  endless  tapes  by  inner  as  well  as  outer 
friskets ;  an  improvement  of  the  register  (that  is,  one 
page  falling  exactly  on  the  back  of  another),  by  which 
greater  accuracy  of  impression  was  also  secured;  and, 
finally,  an  arrangement  by  which  the  sheet  was  thrown 
out  of  the  machine,  printed  by  the  revolving  cylinder 
on  both  sides. 

The  partners  in  Koenig's  patents  had  established  a 
manufactory  in  Whitecross  Street  for  the  production 
of  the  new  machines.  The  workmen  employed  were 
sworn  to  secrecy.  They  entered  into  an  agreement  by 
which  they  were  liable  to  forfeit  £100  if  they  commu- 
nicated to  others  the  secret  of  the  machines,  either  by 
drawings  or  description,  or  if  they  told  by  whom  or 
for  whom  they  were  constructed.  This  was  to  avoid 
the  hostility  of  the  pressmen,  who,  having  heard  of 
the  new  invention,  were  up  in  arms  against  it,  as  likely 
to  deprive  them  of  their  employment.  And  yet,  as 
stated  by  Johnson  in  his  "  Typographia,"  the  manual 
labor  of  the  men  who  worked  at  the  hand-press  was  so 
severe  and  exhausting  "  that  the  stoutest  constitutions 
fell  a  sacrifice  to  it  in  a  few  years."  The  number  of 
sheets  that  could  be  thrown  off  was  also  extremely 
limited.  With  the  improved  press,  perfected  by  Earl 
Stanhope,  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  impressions 
could  be  taken,  or  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  sheets 
printed  on  both  sides,  in  an  hour.  Although  a  greater 
number  was  produced  in  newspaper  printing-offices  by 
excessive  labor,  yet  it  was  necessary  to  have  duplicate 
presses,  and  to  set  up  duplicate  forms  of  type,  to  carry 
on  such  extra  work;  and  still  the  production  of  copies 
was  quite  inadequate  to  satisfy  the  rapidly  increasing 
demand  for  newspapers.  The  time  was  therefore  evi- 
dently ripe  for  the  adoption  of  such  a  machine  as  that 
of  Koenig.     Attempts  had  been  made  by  many  in- 


164:  Frederick  Koenig. 

ventors,  but  every  one  of  them  had  failed.  Printers 
generally  regarded  the  steam-press  as  altogether  chi- 
merical. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  affairs  when  Koenig  fin- 
ished his  improved  printing  machine  in  the  manufac- 
tory in  Whitecross  Street.  The  partners  in  the  inven- 
tion were  now  in  great  hopes.  When  the  machine  had 
been  got  ready  for  work,  the  proprietors  of  several  of 
the  leading  London  newspapers  were  invited  to  wit- 
ness its  performances.  Among  them  were  Mr.  Perry, 
of  the  Morning  Chronicle,  and  Mr.  Walter,  of  The 
Times.  Mr.  Perry  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
the  machine;  he  would  not  even  go  to  see  it,  for  he 
regarded  it  as  a  gimcrack.*  On  the  contrary,  Mr. 
Walter,  though  he  had  five  years  before  declined  to 
enter  into  any  arrangement  with  Bensley,  now  that  he 
heard  the  machine  was  finished  and  at  work,  decided 
to  go  and  inspect  it.  It  was  thoroughly  characteristic 
of  the  business  spirit  of  the  man.  He  had  been  very 
anxious  to  apply  increased  mechanical  power  to  the 
printing  of  his  newspaper.  He  had  consulted  Isam- 
bard  Brunei,  one  of  the  cleverest  inventors  of  the  day, 
on  the  subject;  but  Brunei,  after  studying  the  subject, 
and  laboring  over  a  variety  of  plans,  finally  gave  it  up. 
He  had  next  tried  Thomas  Martyn,  an  ingenious  young 
compositor,  who  had  a  scheme  for  a  self-acting  ma- 
chine for  working  the  printing-press.  But,  although 
Mr.  Walter  supplied  him  with  the  necessary  funds, 
his  scheme  never  came  to  anything.  Now,  therefore, 
was  the  chance  for  Koenig! 

After  carefully  examining  the  machine  at  work,  Mr. 


*  Mr.  Richard  Taylor,  one  of  the  partners  in  the  patent,  says, 
"Mr.  Perry  declined,  alleging  that  he  did  not  consider  a  newspaper 
worth  so  many  years'  purchase  as  would  equal  the  cost  of  the  ma- 
chine." 


Double  Cylinders.  165 

Walter  was  at  once  satisfied  as  to  the  great  value  of 
the  invention.  Pie  saw  it  turning  out  the  impressions 
with  unusual  speed  and  great  regularity.  This  was 
the  very  machine  of  which  he  had  been  in  search. 
But  it  turned  out  the  impressions  printed  on  one  side 
only.  Koenig,  however,  having  briefly  explained  the 
more  rapid  action  of  a  double  machine,  on  the  same 
principle,  for  the  printing  of  newspapers,  Mr.  Walter, 
after  a  few  minutes'  consideration,  and  before  leaving 
the  premises,  ordered  two  double  machines  for  the 
printing  of  The  Times  newspaper.  Here,  at  last,  was 
the  opportunity  for  a  triumphant  issue  out  of  Koenig's 
difficulties. 

The  construction  of  the  first  newspaper  machine  was 
still,  however,  a  work  of  great  difficulty  and  labor. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  nothing  of  the  kind  had 
yet  been  made  by  any  other  inventor.  The  single- 
cylinder  machine,  which  Mr.  Walter  had  seen  at  work, 
was  intended  for  bookwork  only.  Now  Koenig  had  to 
construct  a  double-cylinder  machine  for  printing  news- 
papers, in  which  many  of  the  arrangements  must  nec- 
essarily be  entirely  new.  With  the  assistance  of  his 
leading  mechanic,  Bauer,  aided  by  the  valuable  sug- 
gestions of  Mr.  Walter  himself,  Koenig  at  length  com- 
pleted his  plans,  and  proceeded  with  the  erection  of 
the  working  machine.  The  several  parts  were  prepared 
at  the  workshop  in  Whitecross  Street,  and  taken  from 
thence,  in  as  secret  a  way  as  possible,  to  the  premises 
in  Printing-house  Square  adjoining  The  Times  office, 
where  they  were  fitted  together  and  erected  into  a 
working  machine.  Nearly  two  years  elapsed  before 
the  press  was  ready  for  work.  Great  as  was  the  se- 
crecy with  which  the  operations  were  conducted,  the 
pressmen  of  The  Times  office  obtained  some  inkling  of 
what  was  going  on,  and  they  vowed  vengeance  to  the 
foreign  inventor  who  threatened  their  craft  with  de- 


166  Frederick  Koenig. 

struction.  There  was,  however,  always  this  consola- 
tion— every  attempt  that  had  heretofore  been  made  to 
print  newspapers  in  any  other  way  than  by  manual 
labor  had  proved  an  utter  failure. 

At  length  the  day  arrived  when  the  first  newspaper 
steam  press  was  ready  for  use.  The  pressmen  were  in 
a  state  of  great  excitement,  for  they  knew  by  rumor 
that  the  machine  of  which  they  had  so  long  been  ap- 
prehensive was  fast  approaching  completion.  One 
night  they  were  told  to  wait  in  the  press-room,  as 
important  news  was  expected  from  abroad.  At  six 
o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  29th  November,  1814, 
Mr.  "Walter,  who  had  been  watching  the  working  of 
the  machine  all  through  the  night,  suddenly  appeared 
among  the  pressmen,  and  announced  that "  Hie  Tunes 
is  already  printed  by  steam !"  Knowing  that  the 
pressmen  had  vowed  vengeance  against  the  inventor 
and  his  invention,  and  that  they  had  threatened  "  de- 
struction to  him  and  his  traps,"  he  informed  them  that 
if  they  attempted  violence,  there  was  a  force  ready  to 
suppress  it ;  but  that  if  they  were  peaceable,  their 
wages  should  be  continued  to  every  one  of  them  until 
they  could  obtain  similar  employment.  This  proved 
satisfactory  so  far,  and  he  proceeded  to  distribute  sev- 
eral copies  of  the  newspaper  among  them — the  first 
newspaper  printed  by  steam  !  That  paper  contained 
the  following  memorable  announcement: 

"  Our  Journal  of  this  day  presents  to  the  public  the 
practical  result  of  the  greatest  improvement  connected 
with  printing  since  the  discovery  of  the  art  itself.  The 
reader  of  this  paragraph  now  holds  in  his  hand  one  of 
the  many  thousand  impressions  of  The  Times  news- 
paper which  were  taken  off  last  night  by  a  mechanical 
apparatus.  A  system  of  machinery  almost  organic  has 
been  devised  and  arranged,  which,  while  it  relieves 
the  human  frame  of  its  most  laborious  efforts  in  print- 


Description  of  the  Steam  Press.  167 

ing,  far  exceeds  all  human  powers  in  rapidity  and  dis- 
patch. That  the  magnitude  of  the  invention  may  be 
justly  appreciated  by  its  effects,  we  shall  inform  the 
public,  that  after  the  letters  are  placed  by  the  compos- 
itors, and  enclosed  in  what  is  called  the  forme,  little 
more  remains  for  man  to  do  than  to  attend  upon  and 
to  watch  this  unconscious  agent  in  its  operations.  The 
machine  is  then  merely  supplied  with  paper  :  itself 
places  the  forme,  inks  it,  adjusts  the  paper  to  the 
forme  newly  inked,  stamps  the  sheet,  and  gives  it 
forth  to  the  hands  of  the  attendant,  at  the  same  time 
withdrawing  the  forme  for  a  fresh  coat  of  ink,  which 
itself  again  distributes,  to  meet  the  ensuing  sheet  now 
advancing  for  impression  ;  and  the  whole  of  these 
complicated  acts  is  performed  with  such  a  velocity  and 
simultaneousness  of  movement,  that  no  less  than  1100 
sheets  are  impressed  in  one  hour. 

"  That  the  completion  of  an  invention  of  this  kind, 
not  the  effect  of  chance,  but  the  result  of  mechanical 
combinations  methodically  arranged  in  the  mind  of  the 
artist,  should  be  attended  with  many  obstructions  and 
much  delay,  may  be  readily  imagined.  Our  share  in 
this  event  has,  indeed,  only  been  the  application  of  the 
discovery,  under  an  agreement  with  the  patentees,  to 
our  own  particular  business;  yet  few  can  conceive — 
even  with  this  limited  interest — the  various  disap- 
pointments and  deep  anxiety  to  which  we  have  for  a 
long  course  of  time  been  subjected. 

"Of  the  person  who  made  this  discovery  we  have 
but  little  to  add.  Sir  Christopher  Wren's  noblest 
monument  is  to  be  found  in  the  building  which  he 
erected;  so  is  the  best  tribute  of  praise  which  we  are 
capable  of  offering  to  the  inventor  of  the  printing  ma- 
chine, comprised  in  the  preceding  description,  which 
we  have  feebly  sketched,  of  the  powers  and  utility  of 
his  invention.     It  must  suffice  to  say  further,  that  he 


168  Frederick  Koenig. 

is  a  Saxon  by  birth  ;  that  his  name  is  Koenig  ;  and 
that  the  invention  has  been  executed  under  the  direc- 
tion of  his  friend  and  countryman  Bauer." 

The  machine  continued  to  work  steadily  and  satis- 
factorily, notwithstanding  the  doubters,  the  unbeliev- 
ers, and  the  threateners  of  vengeance.  The  leading 
article  of  The  Times  for  December  3d,  1814,  contains 
the  following  statement: 

"  The  machine  of  which  we  announced  the  discovery 
and  our  adoption  a  few  days  ago,  has  been  whirling  on 
its  course  ever  since,  with  improving  order,  regularity, 
and  even  speed.  The  length  of  the  debates  on  Thurs- 
day, the  day  when  Parliament  was  adjourned,  will  have 
been  observed  ;  on  such  an  occasion  the  operation  of 
composing  and  printing  the  last  page  must  commence 
among  all  the  journals  at  the  same  moment;  and  start- 
ing from  that  moment,  we,  with  our  infinitely  superior 
circulation,  were  enabled  to  throw  off  our  whole  im- 
pression many  hours  before  the  other  respectable  rival 
prints.  The  accuracy  and  clearness  of  the  impression 
will  likewise  excite  attention. 

"  We  shall  make  no  reflections  upon  those  by  whom 
this  wonderful  discovery  has  been  opposed — the  doubt- 
ers and  unbelievers — however  uncharitable  they  may 
have  been  to  us;  were  it  not  that  the  efforts  of  genius 
are  always  impeded  by  drivellers  of  this  description, 
and  that  we  owe  it  to  such  men  as  Mr.  Koenig  and  his 
Friend,  and  all  future  promulgators  of  beneficial  in- 
ventions, to  warn  them  that  they  will  have  to  contend 
with  everything  that  selfishness  and  conceited  igno- 
rance can  devise  or  say  ;  and  if  we  cannot  clear  their 
way  before  them,  we  would  at  least  give  them  notice 
to  prepare  a  panoply  against  its  dirt  and  filth. 

"There  is  another  class  of  men  from  whom  we  re- 
ceive dark  and  anonymous  threats  of  vengeance  if  we 
persevere  in  the  use  of  this  machine.     These  are  the 


Opposition  of  the  Pressmen.  169 

Pressmen.  They  well  know,  at  least  should  well  know, 
that  such  menace  is  thrown  away  upon  us.  There  is 
nothing  that  we  will  not  do  to  assist  and  serve  those 
whom  we  have  discharged.  They  themselves  can  see 
the  greater  rapidity  and  precision  with  which  the  paper 
is  printed.  What  right  have  they  to  make  us  print  it 
slower  and  worse  for  their  supposed  benefit  ?  A  little 
reflection,  indeed,  would  show  them  that  it  is  neither 
in  their  power  nor  in  ours  to  stop  a  discovery  now 
made,  if  it  is  beneficial  to  mankind  ;  or  to  force  it 
down  if  it  is  useless.  They  had  better,  therefore,  ac- 
quiesce in  a  result  which  they  cannot  alter;  more  espe- 
cially as  there  will  still  be  employment  enough  for  the 
old  race  of  pressmen,  before  the  new  method  obtains 
general  use,  and  no  new  ones  need  be  brought  up  to 
the  business;  but  we  caution  them  seriously  against 
involving  themselves  and  their  families  in  ruin,  by 
becoming  amenable  to  the  laws  of  their  country.  It 
has  always  been  matter  of  great  satisfaction  to  us  to 
reflect,  that  we  encountered  and  crushed  one  conspir- 
acy ;  and  we  should  be  sorry  to  find  our  work  half 
done. 

a  It  is  proper  to  undeceive  the  world  in  one  particu- 
lar; that  is,  as  to  the  number  of  men  discharged.  We 
in  fact  employ  only  eight  fewer  workmen  than  former- 
ly; whereas  more  than  three  times  that  number  have 
been  employed  for  a  year  and  a  half  in  building  the 
machine." 

On  the  8th  of  December  following,  Mr.  Koenig  ad- 
dressed an  advertisement  "  To  the  Public  "  in  the  col- 
umns of  The  Times,  giving  an  account  of  the  origin 
and  progress  of  his  invention.  We  have  already  cited 
several  passages  from  the  statement.  After  referring 
to  his  last  two  patents,  he  says  :  "  The  machines  now 
printing  The  Times  and  Mail  are  upon  the  same  prin- 
ciple ;  but  they  have  been  contrived  for  the  particular 

8 


170  Frederick  Koenig. 

purpose  of  a  newspaper  of  extensive  circulation,  where 
expedition  is  the  great  object. 

"  The  public  are  undoubtedly  aware,  that  never,  per- 
haps, was  a  new  invention  put  to  so  severe  a  trial  as 
the  present  one,  by  being  used  on  its  first  public  intro- 
duction for  the  printing  of  newspapers,  and  will,  I 
trust,  be  indulgent  with  respect  to  the  many  defects 
in  the  performance,  though  none  of  them  are  inherent 
in  the  principle  of  the  machine;  and  we  hope  that  in 
less  than  two  months  the  whole  will  be  corrected  by 
greater  adroitness  in  the  management  of  it,  so  far  at 
least  as  the  hurry  of  newspaper  printing  will  at  all 
admit. 

"  It  will  appear  from  the  foregoing  narrative,  that  it 
was  incorrectly  stated  in  several  newspapers  that  I 
had  sold  my  interest  to  two  other  foreigners  ;  my 
partners  in  this  enterprise  being  at  present  two  Eng- 
lishmen, Mr.  Bensley  and  Mr.  Taylor;  and  it  is  grati- 
fying to  my  feelings  to  avail  myself  of  this  opportu- 
nity to  thank  those  gentlemen  publicly  for  the  confidence 
which  they  have  reposed  in  me,  for  the  aid  of  their 
practical  skill,  and  for  the  persevering  support  which 
they  have  afforded  me  in  long  and  very  expensive  ex- 
periments ;  thus  risking  their  fortunes  in  the  prose- 
cution of  my  invention. 

"The  first  introduction  of  the  invention  was  consid- 
ered by  some  as  a  difficult  and  even  hazardous  step. 
The  Proprietor  of  The  Times  having  made  that  his 
task,  the  public  are  aware  that  it  is  in  good  hands." 

One  would  think  that  Koenig  would  now  feel  him- 
self in  smooth  water,  and  receive  a  share  of  the  good 
fortune  which  he  had  so  laboriously  prepared  for  oth- 
ers. Nothing  of  the  kind  !  His  merits  were  disputed; 
his  rights  were  denied  ;  his  patents  were  infringed  ; 
and  he  never  received  any  solid  advantages  for  his  in- 
vention, until  he  left  the  country  and  took  refuge  in 


The  Registering  Machine.  171 

Germany.  It  is  true  lie  remained  for  a  few  years 
longer,  in  charge  of  the  manufactory  in  Whitecross 
Street,  but  they  were  years  to  him  of  trouble  and  sor- 
row. 

In  1816,  Koenig  designed  and  superintended  the 
construction  of  a  single-cylinder  registering  machine 
for  book  -  printing.  This  was  supplied  to  Bensley  & 
Son,  and  turned  out  one  thousand  sheets,  printed  on 
both  sides,  in  the  hour.  Blumenbach's  "  Physiology  " 
was  the  first  entire  book  printed  by  steam,  by  this  new 
machine.  It  was  afterwards  employed,  in  1818,  in 
working  off  the  Literary  Gazette.  A  machine  of  the 
same  kind  was  supplied  to  Mr.  Richard  Taylor  for  the 
purpose  of  printing  the  Philosophical  Magazine,  and 
books  generally.  This  was  afterwards  altered  to  a 
double  machine,  and  employed  for  printing  the  Weekly 
Dispatch. 

But  what  about  Koenig's  patents  ?  They  proved  of 
little  use  to  him.  They  only  proclaimed  his  methods, 
and  enabled  other  ingenious  mechanics  to  borrow  his 
adaptations.  Now  that  he  had  succeeded  in  making 
machines  that  would  work,  the  way  was  clear  for  ev- 
erybody else  to  follow  his  footsteps.  It  had  taken 
him  more  than  six  years  to  invent  and  construct  a 
successful  steam  printing-press  ;  but  any  clever  me- 
chanic, by  merely  studying  his  specification,  and  ex- 
amining his  machine  at  work,  might  arrive  at  the 
same  results  in  less  than  a  week. 

The  patents  did  not  protect  him.  New  specifica- 
tions, embodying  some  modification  or  alteration  in 
detail,  were  lodged  by  other  inventors  and  new  pat- 
ents taken  out.  New  printing  machines  were  con- 
structed in  defiance  of  his  supposed  legal  rights;  and 
he  found  himself  stripped  of  the  reward  that  he  had 
been  laboring  for  during  so  many  long  and  toilsome 
years.     He  could  not  go  to  law,  and  increase  his  own 


172  Frederick  Koenig. 

vexation  and  loss.  He  might  get  into  Chancery  easy 
enough;  but  when  would  he  get  out  of  it,  and  in  what 
condition  ? 

It  must  also  be  added,  that  Koenig  was  unfortunate 
in  his  partner  Bensley.  While  the  inventor  was  taking 
steps  to  push  the  sale  of  his  book-printing  machines 
among  the  London  printers,  Bensley,  who  was  himself 
a  book-printer,  was  hindering  him  in  every  way  in  his 
negotiations.  Koenig  was  of  opinion  that  Bensley 
wished  to  retain  the  exclusive  advantage  which  the 
possession  of  his  registering  book  machine  gave  him 
over  the  other  printers,  by  enabling  him  to  print  more 
quickly  and  correctly  than  they  could,  and  thus  give 
him  an  advantage  over  them  in  his  printing  contracts. 

When  Koenig,  in  despair  at  his  position,  consulted 
counsel  as  to  the  infringement  of  his  patent,  he  was 
told  that  he  might  institute  proceedings  with  the  best 
prospect  of  success  ;  but  to  this  end  a  perfect  agree- 
ment by  the  partners  was  essential.  When,  however, 
Koenig  asked  Bensley  to  concur  with  him  in  taking 
proceedings  in  defence  of  the  patent  right,  he  posi- 
tively refused  to  do  so.  Indeed,  Koenig  was  under 
the  impression  that  his  partner  had  even  entered  into 
an  arrangement  with  the  infringers  of  the  patent  to 
share  with  them  the  proceeds  of  their  piracy. 

Under  these  circumstances,  it  appeared  to  Koenig 
that  only  two  alternatives  remained  for  him  to  adopt. 
One  was  to  commence  an  expensive,  and  it  might  be  a 
protracted,  suit  in  Chancery,  in  defence  of  his  patent 
rights,  with  possibly  his  partner,  Bensley,  against  him; 
and  the  other,  to  abandon  his  invention  in  England 
without  further  struggle,  and  settle  abroad.  He  chose 
the  latter  alternative,  and  left  England  finally  in  Au- 
gust, 1817. 

Mr.  Richard  Taylor,  the  other  partner  in  the  patent, 
was  an  honorable  man ;  but  he  could  not  control  the 


Injustice  to  the  Inventor.  173 

proceedings  of  Bensley.  In  a  memoir  published  by 
him  in  the  Philosophical  Magazine,  "  On  the  Invention 
and  First  Introduction  of  Mr.  Koenig's  Printing  Ma- 
chine," in  which  he  honestly  attributes  to  him  the  sole 
merit  of  the  invention,  he  says,  "  Mr.  Koenig  left  Eng- 
land, suddenly,  in  disgust  at  the  treacherous  conduct 
of  Bensley,  always  shabby  and  overreaching,  and  whom 
he  found  to  be  laying  a  scheme  for  defrauding  his  part- 
ners in  the  patents  of  all  the  advantages  to  arise  from 
them.  Bensley,  however,  while  he  destroyed  the  pros- 
pects of  his  partners,  outwitted  himself,  and  grasping 
at  all,  lost  all,  becoming  bankrupt  in  fortune  as  well  as 
in  character."  * 

Koenig  was  badly  used  throughout.  His  merits  as 
an  inventor  were  denied.  On  the  3d  of  January, 
1818,  after  he  had  left  England,  Bensley  published  a 
letter  in  the  Literary  Gazette,  in  which  he  speaks  of 
the  printing  machine  as  his  own,  without  mentioning 
a  word  of  Koenig.  The  "British  Encyclopaedia,"  in 
describing  the  inventors  of  the  printing  machine, 
omitted  the  name  of  Koenig  altogether.  The  Me- 
chanic's Magazine,  for  September,  1847,  attributed  the 
invention  to  the  proprietors  of  The  Times,  though  Mr. 
Walter  himself  had  said  that  his  share  in  the  event 
had  been  "only  the  application  of  the  discovery;"  and 
the  late  Mr.  Bennet  Woodcroft,  usually  a  fair  man,  in 
his  introductory  chapter  to  "  Patents  for  Inventions  in 
Printing,"  attributes  the  merit  to  William  Nicholson's 
patent  (No.  1748),  which,  he  said,  "produced  an  entire 
revolution  in  the  mechanism  of  the  art."  In  other 
publications,  the  claims  of  Bacon  and  Donkin  were 
put  forward,  while  those  of  Koenig  were  ignored. 
The  memoir  of  Mr.  Richard  Taylor,  in  the  JPhilosoph- 

*  Mr.  Richard  Taylor,  F.S.A.,  memoir  in  Philosophical  Magazine 
for  October,  1847,  p.  300. 


17tt  Frederick  Koenig. 

ical  Magazine,  was  honest  and  satisfactory;  and  should 
have  set  the  question  at  rest. 

It  may  further  be  mentioned  that  William  Nichol- 
son— who  was  a  patent  agent,  and  a  great  taker-out 
of  patents,  both  in  his  own  name  and  in  the  names  of 
others — was  the  person  employed  by  Koenig  as  his 
agent  to  take  the  requisite  steps  for  registering  his 
invention.  When  Koenig  consulted  him  on  the  sub- 
ject, Nicholson  observed  that  "  seventeen  years  before 
he  had  taken  out  a  patent  for  machine-printing,  but  he 
had  abandoned  it,  thinking  that  it  wouldn't  do  ;  and 
had  never  taken  it  up  again.""  Indeed,  the  two  ma- 
chines were  on  different  principles.  Nor  did  Nichol- 
son himself  ever  make  any  claim  to  priority  of  inven- 
tion, when  the  sueeess  of  Koenig's  machine  was  pub- 
lioly  proclaimed  by  Mr.  "Walter  of  rThe  Times  some 
seven  years  later. 

When  Koenig,  now  settled  abroad,  heard  of  the  at- 
tempts made  in  England  to  deny  his  merits  as  an  in- 
ventor, he  merely  observed  to  his  friend  Bauer,  "It  is 
really  too  bad  that  these  people,  who  have  already 
robbed  me  of  my  invention,  should  now  try  to  rob  me 
of  my  reputation."  Had  he  made  any  reply  to  the 
eharges  against  him,  it  might  have  been  comprised  in 
a  very  few  words  :  "  When  I  arrived  in  England,  no 
steam  printing  machine  had  ever  before  been  seen  ; 
when  I  left  it,  the  only  printing  machines  in  actual 
work  were  those  which  I  had  constructed."  But 
Koenig  never  took  the  trouble  to  defend  the  oriiri- 
nality  of  his  invention  in  England,  now  that  he  had 
finally  abandoned  the  field  to  others. 

There  can  be  no  question  as  to  the  great  improve- 
ments introduced  in  the  printing  machine  by  Mr.  Ap- 
plegarth  and  Mr.  Cowper;  by  Messrs.  Hoe  &  Sons,  of 
New  York;  and  still  later  by  the  present  Mr.  Walter 
of  The  Times,  which  have  brought  the  art  of  machine- 


Comparisons.  175 


printing  to  an  extraordinary  degree  of  perfection  and 
speed.  But  the  original  merits  of  an  invention  are 
not  to  be  determined  by  a  comparison  of  the  first  ma- 
chine of  the  kind  ever  made  with  the  last,  after  some 
sixty  years'  experience  and  skill  have  been  applied  in 
bringing  it  to  perfection.  Were  the  first  condensing- 
engine  made  at  Soho — now  to  be  seen  at  the  Museum 
in  South  Kensington — in  like  manner  to  be  compared 
with  the  last  improved  pumping-engine  made  yester- 
day, even  the  great  James  Watt  might  be  made  out 
to  have  been  a  very  poor  contriver.  It  would  be 
much  fairer  to  compare  Koenig's  steam  printing  ma- 
chine with  the  hand-press  newspaper  printiug  machine 
which  it  superseded.  Though  there  were  steam-en- 
gines before  Watt,  and  steamboats  before  Fulton,  and 
Steam  locomotives  before  Stephenson,  there  were  no 
steam  printing  presses  before  Koenig  with  which  to 
compare  them.  Koenig's  was  undoubtedly  the  first, 
and  stood  unequalled  and  alone. 

The  rest  of  Koenig's  life,  after  he  retired  to  Ger- 
many, was  spent  in  industry,  if  not  in  peace  and  quiet- 
ness. He  could  not  fail  to  be  cast  down  by  the  utter 
failure  of  his  English  partnership,  and  the  loss  of  the 
fruits  of  his  ingenious  labors.  But  instead  of  brood- 
ing over  his  troubles,  he  determined  to  break  away 
from  them,  and  begin  the  world  anew.  He  was  only 
forty-three  when  he  left  England,  and  he  might  yet  be 
able  to  establish  himself  prosperously  in  life.  He  had 
his  own  head  and  hands  to  help  him.  Though  Eng- 
land was  virtually  closed  against  him,  the  whole  con- 
tinent of  Europe  was  open  to  him,  and  presented  a 
wide  Held  for  the  sale  of  his  printing  machines. 

While  residing  in  England,  Koenig  had  received 
many  communications  from  influential  printers  in 
Germany.  Johann  Spencer  and  George  Decker  wrote 
to  him  in  1815,  asking  for  particulars  about  his  inven- 


176  Frederick  Koenig. 

tion  ;  but  finding  his  machine  too  expensive,*  the  lat- 
ter commissioned  Koenig  to  send  him  a  Stanhope 
printing-press  —  the  first  ever  introduced  into  Ger- 
many— the  price  of  which  was  £95.  Koenig  did  this 
service  for  his  friend,  for  although  he  stood  by  the 
superior  merits  of  his  own  invention,  he  was  sufficient- 
ly liberal  to  recognize  the  merits  of  the  inventions  of 
others.  Now  that  he  was  about  to  settle  in  Germany, 
he  was  able  to  supply  his  friends  and  patrons  on  the 
spot. 

The  question  arose,  where  was  he  to  settle?  He 
made  inquiries  about  sites  along  the  Rhine,  the  Neck- 
ar,  and  the  Main.  At  last  he  was  attracted  by  a 
specially  interesting  spot  at  Oberzell  on  the  Main, 
near  Wiirzburg.  It  was  an  old  disused  convent  of 
the  Pramionstratensian  monks.  The  place  was  con- 
veniently situated  for  business,  being  nearly  in  the 
centre  of  Germany.  The  Bavarian  government,  de- 
sirous of  giving  encouragement  to  so  useful  a  genius, 
granted  Koenig  the  use  of  the  secularized  monastery 
on  easy  terms  ;  and  there,  accordingly,  he  began  his 
operations  in  the  course  of  the  following  year.  Bauer 
soon  joined  him,  with  an  order  from  Mr.  Walter  for  an 
improved  Times  machine  ;  and  the  two  men  entered 
into  a  partnership  which  lasted  for  life. 

The  partners  had  at  first  great  difficulties  to  encoun- 
ter in  getting  their  establishment  to  work.  Oberzell 
was  a  rural  village,  containing  only  common  laborers, 
from  whom  they  had  to  select  their  workmen.  Every 
person  taken  into  the  concern  had  to  be  trained  and 
educated  to  mechanical  work  by  the  partners  them- 

*  The  price  of  a  single-cylinder  non-registering  machine  was  adver- 
tised at  £900  ;  of  a  double  ditto,  £1400  ;  and  of  a  cylinder  registering 
machine,  £2000 ;  added  to  which  was  £250,  £350,  and  £500  per  an- 
num for  each  of  these  machines  so  long  as  the  patent  lasted,  or  an 
agreed  sum  to  be  paid  down  at  once. 


Steam  Presses  in  Germany.  177 

selves.  With  indescribable  patience  they  taught  these 
laborers  the  use  of  the  hammer,  the  file,  the  turning- 
lathe,  and  other  tools,  which  the  greater  number  of 
them  had  never  before  seen,  and  of  whose  uses  they 
were  entirely  ignorant.  The  machinery  of  the  work- 
shop was  got  together  with  equal  difficulty  piece  by 
piece,  some  of  the  parts  from  a  great  distance — the 
mechanical  arts  being  then  at  a  very  low  ebb  in  Ger- 
many, which  was  still  suffering  from  the  effects  of  the 
long  Continental  war.  At  length  the  workshop  was 
fitted  up,  the  old  barn  of  the  monastery  being  convert- 
ed into  an  iron  foundery. 

Orders  for  printing  machines  were  gradually  ob- 
tained. The  first  came  from  Brockhaus,  of  Leipzig. 
By  the  end  of  the  fourth  year  two  other  single-cylin- 
der machines  were  completed  and  sent  to  Berlin,  for 
use  in  the  State  printing-office.  By  the  end  of  the 
eighth  year  seven  double-cylinder  steam  presses  had 
been  manufactured  for  the  largest  newspaper  printers 
in  Germany.  The  recognized  excellence  of  Koenig  & 
Bauer's  book-printing  machines — their  perfect  regis- 
ter, and  the  quality  of  the  work  they  turned  out — se- 
cured for  them  an  increasing  demand,  and  by  the  year 
1829  the  firm  had  manufactured  fifty-one  machines  for 
the  leading  book -printers  throughout  Germany.  The 
Oberzell  manufactory  was  now  in  full  work,  and  gave 
regular  employment  to  about  one  hundred  and  twenty 
men. 

A  period  of  considerable  depression  followed.  As 
was  the  case  in  England,  the  introduction  of  the  print- 
ing machine  in  Germany  excited  considerable  hostility 
among  the  pressmen.  In  some  of  the  principal  towns 
they  entered  into  combinations  to  destroy  them,  and 
several  printing  machines  were  broken  by  violence, 
and  irretrievably  injured.  But  progress  could  not  be 
stopped;  the  printing  machine  had  been  fairly  born, 


178  Frederick  Koenig. 

and  must  eventually  do  its  work  for  mankind.  These 
combinations,  however,  had  an  effect  for  a  time.  They 
deterred  other  printers  from  giving  orders  for  the  ma- 
chines; and  Koenig  &  Bauer  were  under  the  neces- 
sity of  suspending  their  manufacture  to  a  considerable 
extent.  To  keep  their  men  employed,  the  partners 
proceeded  to  fit  up  a  paper  manufactory,  Mr.  Cotta, 
of  Stuttgart,  joining  them  in  the  adventure,  and  a  mill 
was  fitted  up,  embodying  all  the  latest  improvements 
in  paper-making. 

Koenig,  however,  did  not  live  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of 
all  his  study,  labor,  toil,  and  anxiety;  for,  while  this 
enterprise  was  still  in  progress,  and  before  the  machine 
trade  had  revived,  he  was  taken  ill,  and  confined  to 
bed.  He  became  sleepless;  his  nerves  were  unstrung; 
and  no  wonder.  Brain-disease  carried  him  off  on  the 
17th  of  January,  1833,  and  this  good,  ingenious,  and 
admirable  inventor  was  removed  from  all  further  care 
and  trouble.  He  died  at  the  early  age  of  fifty-eight, 
respected  and  beloved  by  all  who  knew  him. 

His  partner,  Bauer,  survived  to  continue  the  busi- 
ness for  twenty  years  longer.  It  was  during  this  later 
period  that  the  Oberzell  manufactory  enjoyed  its  great- 
est prosperity.  The  prejudices  of  the  workmen  grad- 
ually subsided  when  they  found  that  machine-printing, 
instead  of  abridging  employment,  as  they  feared  it 
would  do,  enormously  increased  it;  and  orders,  ac- 
cordingly, flowed  in  from  Berlin,  Vienna,  and  all  the 
leading  towns  and  cities  of  Germany,  Austria,  Den- 
mark, Russia,  and  Sweden.  The  six-hundredth  ma- 
chine, turned  out  in  1847,  was  capable  of  printing  six 
thousand  impressions  in  the  hour.  In  March,  1865,  the 
thousandth  machine  was  completed  at  Oberzell,  on  the 
occasion  of  the  celebration  of  the  fifty  years'  jubilee 
of  the  invention  of  the  steam  press  by  Koenig. 

The  sons  of  Koenig  carried  on  the  business;  and,  in 


Manufactory  at  Oberzell.  179 

the  biography  by  Goebel,  it  is  stated  that  the  manu- 
factory of  Oberzell  has  now  turned  out  no  fewer  than 
three  thousand  printing  machines.  The  greater  num- 
ber have  been  supplied  to  Germany;  but  six  hundred 
and  sixty  were  sent  to  Russia,  sixty-one  to  Asia,  twelve 
to  England,  and  eleven  to  America.  The  rest  were 
despatched  to  Italy,  Switzerland,  Sweden,  Sj}ain,  Hol- 
land, and  other  countries. 

It  remains  to  be  said  that  Koenig  and  Bauer,  united 
in  life,  were  not  divided  by  death.  Bauer  died  on 
February  27th,  1860,  and  the  remains  of  the  partners 
now  lie  side  by  side  in  the  little  cemetery  at  Oberzell, 
close  to  the  scene  of  their  labors  and  the  valuable  es- 
tablishment which  they  founded. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  WALTERS  OF  "THE  TIMES." 

INVENTION     OF     THE    WALTER     PRESS. 

"Intellect  and  industry  are  never  incompatible.  There  is  more 
wisdom,  and  will  be  more  benefit,  in  combining  them,  than  scholars 
like  to  believe,  or  than  the  common  world  imagine.  Life  has  time 
enough  for  both,  and  its  happiness  will  be  increased  by  the  union." — 
Sharon  Turner. 

"I  have  beheld  with  most  respect  the  man 
Who  knew  himself,  and  knew  the  ways  before  him, 
And  from  among  them  chose  considerately, 
With  a  clear  foresight,  not  a  blindfold  courage; 
And,  having  chosen,  with  a  steadfast  mind 
Pursued  his  purpose." 

Henry  Taylor  :  Philip  von  Artevelde. 

The  late  John  "Walter,  who  adopted  Koenig's  steam 
printing-press  in  printing  TJie  Times,  was  virtually  the 
inventor  of  the  modern  newspaper.  The  first  John 
Walter,  his  father,  learned  the  art  of  printing  in  the 
office  of  Dodsley,  the  proprietor  of  the  "  Annual  Reg- 
ister." He  afterwards  pursued  the  profession  of  an  un- 
derwriter, but  his  fortunes  were  literally  shipwrecked 
by  the  capture  of  a  fleet  of  merchantmen  by  a  French 
squadron.  Compelled  by  this  loss  to  return  to  his 
trade,  he  succeeded  in  obtaining  the  publication  of 
"Lloyd's  List,"  as  well  as  the  printing  of  the  Board  of 
Customs.  He  also  established  himself  as  a  publisher 
and  bookseller,  at  No.  8  Charing  Cross.  But  his  prin- 
cipal achievement  was  in  founding  The  Times  news- 
paper. 


"  The  Times."  181 


The  Daily  Universal  Register  was  started  on  the 
1st  of  January,  1785,  and  was  described  in  the  heading 
as  "printed  logographically."  The  type  had  still  to 
be  composed,  letter  by  letter,  each  placed  alongside  of 
its  predecessor  by  human  fingers.  Mr.  Walter's  inven- 
tion consisted  in  using  stereotyped  words  and  parts  of 
words  instead  of  separate  metal  letters,  by  which  a 
certain  savin  £  of  time  and  labor  was  effected.  The 
name  of  the  Register  did  not  suit,  there  being  many 
other  publications  bearing  a  similar  title.  According- 
ly, it  was  renamed  The  Times,  and  the  first  number 
was  issued  from  Printing-house  Square  on  the  1st  of 
January,  1788. 

The  Times  was  at  first  a  very  meagre  publication. 
It  was  not  much  bigger  than  a  number  of  the  old 
Penny  Magazine,  containing  a  single  short  leader 
on  some  current  topic,  without  any  pretensions  to  ex- 
cellence; some  driblets  of  news  spread  out  in  large 
type ;  half  a  column  of  foreign  intelligence,  with  a 
column  of  facetious  paragraphs  under  the  heading  of 
"The  Cuckoo ;"  while  the  rest  of  each  number  con- 
sisted of  advertisements.  Notwithstanding  the  com- 
parative innocence  of  the  contents  of  the  early  num- 
bers of  the  paper,  certain  passages  which  appeared  in 
it  on  two  occasions  subjected  the  publisher  to  impris- 
onment in  Newgate.  The  extent  of  the  offence,  on 
one  occasion,  consisted  in  the  publication  of  a  short 
paragraph  intimating  that  their  royal  highnesses  the 
Prince  of  Wales  and  the  Duke  of  York  had  "  so  de- 
meaned themselves  as  to  incur  the  just  disapprobation 
of  his  majesty!"  For  such  slight  offences  were  print- 
ers sent  to  jail  in  those  days. 

Although  the  first  Mr.  Walter  was  a  man  of  consid- 
erable business  ability,  his  exertions  were  probably  too 
much  divided  among  a  variety  of  pursuits  to  enable 
him  to  devote  that  exclusive  attention  to  The  Times 


182  The  Walters  of  "The  Times." 

which  was  necessary  to  insure  its  success.  He  possi- 
bly regarded  it,  as  other  publishers  of  neAvspapers  then 
did,  mainly  as  a  means  of  obtaining  a  profitable  busi- 
ness in  job-printing.  Hence,  in  the  elder  "Walter's 
hands,  the  paper  was  not  only  unprofitable  in  itself, 
but  its  maintenance  became  a  source  of  gradually  in- 
creasing expenditure,  and  the  proprietor  seriously  con- 
templated its  discontinuance. 

At  this  juncture  John  Walter,  junior,  who  had  been 
taken  into  the  business  as  a  partner,  entreated  his  fa- 
ther to  intrust  him  with  the  sole  conduct  of  the  paper, 
and  to  give  it  "  one  more  trial."  This  was  at  the  be- 
ginning of  1803.  The  new  editor  and  conductor  was 
then  only  twenty-seven  years  of  age.  He  had  been 
trained  to  the  manual  work  of  a  printer  "  at  case," 
and  passed  through  nearly  every  department  in  the 
office,  literary  and  mechanical.  But,  in  the  first  place, 
he  had  received  a  very  liberal  education,  first  at  Mer- 
chant Taylors'  School,  and  afterwards  at  Trinity  Col- 
lege, Oxford,  where  he  pursued  his  classical  studies 
with  much  success.  He  was  thus  a  man  of  well-cult- 
ured mind  ;  he  had  been  thoroughly  disciplined  to 
work  ;  he  was,  moreover,  a  man  of  tact  and  energy, 
full  of  expedients,  and  possessed  by  a  passion  for  busi- 
ness. His  father,  urged  by  the  young  man's  entreat- 
ies, at  length  consented,  although  not  without  misgiv- 
ings, to  resign  into  his  hands  the  entire  future  control 
of  The  Times. 

Young  Walter  proceeded  forthwith  to  remodel  the 
establishment,  and  to  introduce  improvements  into  ev- 
ery department,  as  far  as  the  scanty  capital  at  his 
command  would  admit.  Before  he  assumed  the  direc- 
tion, The  Times  did  not  seek  to  guide  opinion  or  to 
exercise  political  influence.  It  was  a  scanty  newspaper 
— nothing  more.  Any  political  matters  referred  to 
were  usually  introduced  in  "  Letters  to  the  Editor,"  in 


The  Leading  Article.  183 

the  form  in  which  Junius's  Letters  first  appeared  in 
the  Public  Advertiser.  The  comments  on  political  af- 
fairs by  the  editor  were  meagre  and  brief,  and  confined 
to  a  mere  statement  of  supposed  facts. 

Mr.  Walter,  very  much  to  the  dismay  of  his  father, 
struck  out  an  entirely  new  course.  He  boldly  stated 
his  views  on  public  affairs,  bringing  his  strong  and 
original  judgment  to  bear  upon  the  political  and  social 
topics  of  the  day.  He  carefully  watched  and  closely 
studied  public  opinion,  and  discussed  general  questions 
in  all  their  bearings.  He  thus  invented  the  modern 
leading  article.  The  adoption  of  an  independent  line 
of  politics  necessarily  led  him  to  canvass  freely,  and 
occasionally  to  condemn,  the  measures  of  the  govern- 
ment. Thus,  he  had  only  been  about  a  year  in  office 
as  editor,  when  the  Sidmouth  administration  was  suc- 
ceeded by  that  of  Mr.  Pitt,  under  whom  Lord  Melville 
undertook  the  unfortunate  Catamaran  expedition.  His 
lordship's  malpractices  in  the  navy  department  had 
also  been  brought  to  light  by  the  Commissioners  of 
Naval  Inquiry.  On  both  these  topics  Mr.  Walter 
spoke  out  freely  in  terms  of  reprobation  ;  and  the 
result  was,  that  the  printing  for  the  customs  and  the 
government  advertisements  were  at  once  removed  from 
The  Times  office. 

Two  years  later  Mr.  Pitt  died,  and  an  administration 
succeeded  which  contained  a  portion  of  the  political 
chiefs  whom  the  editor  had  formerly  supported  on  his 
undertaking  the  management  of  the  paper.  He  was 
invited  by  one  of  them  to  state  the  injustice  which 
had  been  done  to  him  by  the  loss  of  the  customs  ]3rint- 
ing,  and  a  memorial  to  the  treasury  was  submitted  for 
his  signature,  with  a  view  to  its  recovery.  But,  be- 
lieving that  the  reparation  of  the  injury  in  this  man- 
ner was  likely  to  be  considered  as  a  favor,  entitling 
those  who  granted  it  to  a  certain  degree  of  influence 


184  The  Walters  of  "  The  Times:' 

over  the  politics  of  the  journal,  Walter  refused  to  sign 
it,  or  to  have  any  concern  in  presenting  the  memorial. 
He  did  more  ;  he  wrote  to  those  from  whom  the  resto- 
ration of  the  employment  was  expected  to  come,  disa- 
vowing all  connection  with  the  proceeding.  The  mat- 
ter then  dropped,  and  the  customs  printing  was  never 
restored  to  the  office. 

This  course  was  so  unprecedented,  and,  as  his  father 
thought,  was  so  very  wrong-headed,  that  young  Wal- 
ter had  for  some  time  considerable  difficulty  in  hold- 
ing his  ground  and  maintaining  the  independent  posi- 
tion he  had  assumed.  But,  with  great  tenacity  of 
purpose,  he  held  on  his  course  undismayed.  He  was 
a  man  who  looked  far  ahead — not  so  much  taking  into 
account  the  results  at  the  end  of  each  day  or  of  each 
year,  but  how  the  plan  he  had  laid  down  for  con- 
ducting the  paper  would  work  out  in  the  long  run. 
And  events  proved  that  the  high-minded  course  he 
had  pursued  with  so  much  firmness  of  purpose  was  the 
wisest  course  after  all. 

Another  feature  in  the  management  which  showed 
clear-sightedness  and  business  acuteness  was,  the  pains 
which  the  editor  took  to  insure  greater  celerity  of 
information  and  despatch  in  printing.  The  expense 
which  he  incurred  in  carrying  out  these  objects  ex- 
cited the  serious  displeasure  of  his  father,  who  regard- 
ed them  as  acts  of  juvenile  folly  and  extravagance. 
Another  circumstance  strongly  roused  the  old  man's 
wrath.  It  appears  that  in  those  days  the  insertion  of 
theatrical  puffs  formed  a  considerable  source  of  news- 
paper income  ;  and  yet  young  Walter  determined  at 
once  to  abolish  them.  It  is  not  a  little  remarkable 
that  these  earliest  acts  of  Mr.  Walter,  which  so  clearly 
marked  his  enterprise  and  high  -  mindedness,  should 
have  been  made  the  subject  of  painful  comments  in 
his  father's  will. 


Journalism.  185 


Notwithstanding  this  serious  opposition  from  within, 
the  power  and  influence  of  the  paper  visibly  and  rapid- 
ly grew.  The  new  editor  concentrated  in  the  columns 
of  his  paper  a  range  of  information  such  as  had  never 
before  been  attempted,  or,  indeed,  thought  possible. 
His  vigilant  eye  was  directed  to  every  detail  of  his 
business.  He  greatly  improved  the  reporting  of  pub- 
lic meetings,  the  money  market,  and  other  intelligence, 
aiming  at  greater  fulness  and  accuracy.  In  the  de- 
partment of  criticism  his  labors  were  unwearied.  He 
sought  to  elevate  the  character  of  the  paper,  and  ren- 
dered it  more  dignified  by  insisting  that  it  should  be 
impartial.  He  thus  conferred  the  greatest  public  service 
upon  literature,  the  drama,  and  the  fine  arts,  by  protect- 
ing them  against  the  evil  influences  of  venal  panegyric 
on  the  one  hand,  and  of  prejudiced  hostility  on  the  other. 

But  the  most  remarkable  feature  of  The  Times — 
that  which  emphatically  commended  it  to  public  sup- 
port and  insured  its  commercial  success — was  its  de- 
partment of  foreign  intelligence.  At  the  time  that 
Walter  undertook  the  management  of  the  journal  Eu- 
rope was  a  vast  theatre  of  war ;  and  in  the  conduct  of 
commercial  affairs — not  to  speak  of  political  move- 
ments— it  was  of  the  most  vital  importance  that  early 
information  should  be  obtained  of  affairs  on  the  Con- 
tinent. The  editor  resolved  to  become  himself  the 
purveyor  of  foreign  intelligence,  and  at  great  expense 
he  despatched  his  agents  in  all  directions,  even  in  the 
track  of  armies ;  while  others  were  employed,  under 
various  disguises  and  by  means  of  sundry  pretexts,  in 
many  parts  of  the  Continent.  These  agents  collected 
information,  and  despatched  it  to  London,  often  at 
considerable  risks,  for  publication  in  The  Times,  where 
it  usually  appeared  long  in  advance  of  the  government 
despatches. 

The  late  Mr.  Pryme,  in  his  "  Autobiographic  Recol- 


186  The  Walters  of 'The  Times? 

lections,"  mentions  a  visit  which  he  paid  to  Mr.  Walter 
at  his  seat  at  Bearwood.  "  He  described  to  me,"  says 
Mr.  Pryme,  "  the  cause  of  the  large  extension  in  the 
circulation  of  The  Times.  He  was  the  first  to  estab- 
lish a  foreign  correspondent.  This  was  Henry  Crabb 
Robinson,  at  a  salary  of  £300  a  year.  .  .  .  Mr.  Walter 
also  established  local  reporters,  instead  of  copying  from 
the  country  papers.  His  father  doubted  the  wisdom 
of  such  a  large  expenditure,  but  the  son  prophesied  a 
gradual  and  certain  success,  which  has  actually  been 
realized." 

Mr.  Robinson  has  described  in  his  "  Diary  "  the  man- 
ner in  which  he  became  connected  with  the  foreign 
correspondence.  "In  January,  1807,"  he  says,  "I  re- 
ceived, through  my  friend,  J.  D.  Collier,  a  proposal 
from  Mr.  Walter  that  I  should  take  up  my  residence 
at  Altona,  and  become  The  Tunes  correspondent.  I 
was  to  receive  from  the  editor  of  the  Hamburger  Cor- 
respondenten  all  the  public  documents  at  his  disposal, 
and  was  to  have  the  benefit  also  of  a  mass  of  informa- 
tion of  which  the  restraints  of  the  German  press  did 
not  permit  him  to  avail  himself.  The  honorarium  I 
was  to  receive  was  ample  with  my  habits  of  life.  I 
gladly  accepted  the  offer,  and  never  repented  having 
done  so.  My  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Walter  ripened 
into  friendship,  and  lasted  as  long  as  he  lived."* 

Mr.  Robinson  was  forced  to  leave  Germany  by  the 
battle  of  Friedland  and  the  treaty  of  Tilsit,  which 
resulted  in  the  naval  coalition  against  England.  Re- 
turning to  London,  he  became  foreign  editor  of  The 
Times  until  the  following  year,  when  he  proceeded  to 
Spain  as  foreign  correspondent.  Mr.  Walter  had  also 
an  agent  in  the  track  of  the  army  in  the  unfortunate 

*  "Diary,  Reminiscences,  and  Correspondence  of  Henry  Crabb 
Robinson,  Barrister-at-Law,  F.S.A.,"  vol.  i.  p.  231. 


Enterprise  in  News-gathering.  187 

Walcheren  expedition;  and  The  Times  announced  the 
capitulation  of  Flushing  forty-eight  hours  before  the 
news  had  arrived  by  any  other  channel.  By  this 
prompt  method  of  communicating  public  intelligence, 
the  practice,  which  had  previously  existed,  of  system- 
atically retarding  the  publication  of  foreign  news  by 
officials  at  the  general  post-office,  who  made  gain  by 
selling  them  to  the  Lombard  Street  brokers,  was  ef- 
fectually extinguished. 

This  circumstance,  as  well  as  the  independent  course 
which  Mr.  Walter  adopted  in  the  discussion  of  foreign 
politics,  explains  in  some  measure  the  opposition  which 
he  had  to  encounter  in  the  transmission  of  his  despatch- 
es. As  early  as  the  year  1805,  when  he  had  come  into 
collision  with  the  government  and  lost  the  customs 
printing,  The  Times  despatches  were  regularly  stopped 
at  the  outports,  while  those  of  the  ministerial  journals 
were  allowed  to  proceed.  This  might  have  crushed  a 
weaker  man,  but  it  did  not  crush  Walter.  Of  course 
he  expostulated.  He  was  informed  at  the  home  sec- 
retary's office  that  he  might  be  permitted  to  receive 
his  foreign  papers  as  a  favor.  But  as  this  implied 
the  expectation  of  a  favor  from  him  in  return,  the 
proposal  was  rejected  ;  and,  determined  not  to  be 
baffled,  he  employed  special  couriers,  at  great  cost, 
for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  the  earliest  transmission 
of  foreign  intelligence. 

These  important  qualities — enterprise,  energy,  busi- 
ness tact,  and  public  spirit — sufficiently  account  for 
his  remarkable  success.  To  these,  however,  must  be 
added  another  of  no  small  importance — discernment 
and  knowledge  of  character.  Though  himself  the 
head  and  front  of  his  enterprise,  it  was  necessary  that 
he  should  secure  the  services  and  co-operation  of  men 
of  first-rate  ability;  and  in  the  selection  of  such  men 
his  judgment  was  almost  unerring.     By  his  discern- 


188  The  Walters  of  "The  Times? 

ment  and  munificence  he  collected  round  him  some  of 
the  ablest  writers  of  the  age.  These  were  frequently 
revealed  to  him  in  the  communications  of  correspond- 
ents, the  author  of  the  letters  signed  "  Yetus  "  being 
thus  selected  to  write  in  the  leading  columns  of  the 
paper.  But  Walter  himself  was  the  soul  of  The  Times. 
It  was  he  who  gave  the  tone  to  its  articles,  directed 
its  influence,  and  superintended  its  entire  conduct  with 
unremitting  vigilance. 

Even  in  conducting  the  mechanical  arrangements  of 
the  paper — a  business  of  no  small  difficulty — he  had 
often  occasion  to  exercise  promptness  and  boldness  of 
decision  in  cases  of  emergency.  Printers  in  those  days 
were  a  rather  refractory  class  of  workmen,  and  not  un- 
frequently  took  advantage  of  their  position  to  impose 
hard  terms  on  their  employers,  especially  in  the  daily 
press,  where  everything  must  be  promptly  done  within 
a  very  limited  time.  Thus,  on  one  occasion,  in  1810, 
the  pressmen  made  a  sudden  demand  upon  the  propri- 
etor for  an  increase  of  wages,  and  insisted  upon  a  uni- 
form rate  being  paid  to  all  hands,  whether  good  or 
bad.  Walter  was  at  first  disposed  to  make  conces- 
sions to  the  men,  but,  having  been  privately  informed 
that  a  combination  was  already  entered  into  by  the 
compositors,  as  well  as  by  the  pressmen,  to  leave  his 
employment  suddenly,  under  circumstances  that  would 
have  stopped  the  publication  of  the  paper  and  inflicted 
on  him  the  most  serious  injury,  he  determined  to  run 
all  risks,  rather  than  submit  to  what  now  appeared  to 
him  in  the  light  of  an  extortion. 

The  strike  took  place  on  a  Saturday  morning,  when 
suddenly,  and  without  notice,  all  the  hands  turned  out. 
Mr.  Walter  had  only  a  few  hours'  notice  of  it,  but  he 
had  already  resolved  upon  his  course.  He  collected 
apprentices  from  half  a  dozen  different  quarters,  and 
a  few  inferior  workmen,  who  were  glad  to  obtain  em- 


The  "Strike."  189 


ployment  on  any  terms.  He  himself  stripped  to  his 
shirt-sleeves,  and  went  to  work  with  the  rest,  and  for 
the  next  six-and-thirty  hours  he  was  incessantly  em- 
ployed at  case  and  at  press.  On  the  Monday  morning 
the  conspirators,  who  had  assembled  to  triumph  over 
his  ruin,  to  their  inexpressible  amazement  saw  The 
Times  issue  from  the  publishing  office  at  the  usual 
hour,  affording  a  memorable  example  of  what  one 
man's  resolute  energy  may  accomplish  in  a  moment 
of  difficulty. 

The  journal  continued  to  appear  with  regularity, 
though  the  printers  employed  at  the  office  lived  in  a 
state  of  daily  peril.  The  conspirators,  finding  them- 
selves baffled,  resolved  upon  trying  another  game. 
They  contrived  to  have  two  of  the  men  employed  by 
Walter  as  compositors  apprehended  as  deserters  from 
the  royal  navy.  The  men  were  taken  before  the  mag- 
istrate, but  the  charge  was  only  sustained  by  the  testi- 
mony of  clumsy,  perjured  witnesses,  and  fell  to  the 
ground.  The  turn-outs  next  proceeded  to  assault  the 
new  hands,  when  Mr.  Walter  resolved  to  throw  around 
them  the  protection  of  the  law.  By  the  advice  of 
counsel  he  had  twenty-one  of  the  conspirators  appre- 
hended and  tried,  and  nineteen  of  them  were  found 
guilty,  and  condemned  to  various  periods  of  imprison- 
ment. From  that  moment  combination  was  at  an  end 
in  Printing-house  Square. 

Mr.  Walter  was  a  good  master,  paying  good  wages, 
and  contributing  in  many  ways  to  the  well-being  of  his 
workmen.  Thus  he  founded  a  benefit  society  for  their 
relief  in  sickness,  releasing  his  men  from  the  expenses 
connected  with  combination  societies,  and  rendered  his 
office  one  of  the  most  advantageous  situations  for 
steady  and  skilled  workmen  in  London  —  the  best 
proof  of  which  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  a  very 
considerable  number  of  the  younger  compositors  in 


190  The  Walters  of  "The  Times:' 

the  office  at  this  day  are  men  whose  fathers  were 
printers  in  Mr.  Walter's  employment. 

But  Mr.  "Walter's  greatest  achievement  was  his  suc- 
cessful application  of  steam-power  to  newspaper  print- 
ing. Although  he  had  greatly  improved  the  mechan- 
ical arrangements  after  he  took  command  of  the  paper, 
the  rate  at  which  the  copies  could  be  printed  off  re- 
mained almost  stationary.  It  took  a  very  long  time 
indeed  to  throw  off,  by  the  hand -labor  of  pressmen, 
the  three  or  four  thousand  copies  which  then  consti- 
tuted the  ordinary  circulation  of  The  Times.  On  the 
occasion  of  any  event  of  great  public  interest  being 
reported  in  the  paper,  it  was  found  almost  impossible 
to  meet  the  demand  for  copies.  Only  about  three 
hundred  copies  could  be  printed  in  the  hour,  with  one 
man  to  ink  the  types  and  another  to  work  the  press, 
while  the  labor  was  very  severe.  Thus  it  took  a  long 
time  to  get  out  the  daily  impression,  and  very  often 
the  evening  papers  were  out  before  The  Times  had 
half  supplied  the  demand. 

Mr.  Walter  could  not  brook  the  tedium  of  this  irk- 
some and  laborious  process.  To  increase  the  number 
of  impressions,  he  resorted  to  various  expedients.  The 
type  was  set  up  in  duplicate,  and  even  in  triplicate ; 
several  Stanhope  presses  were  kept  constantly  at  work; 
and  still  the  insatiable  demands  of  the  newsmen  on  cer- 
tain occasions  could  not  be  met.  Thus  the  question 
was  early  forced  upon  his  consideration,  whether  he 
could  not  devise  machinery  for  the  purpose  of  expe- 
diting the  production  of  newspapers.  Instead  of  three 
hundred  impressions  an  hour,  he  wanted  from  one 
thousand  five  hundred  to  two  thousand.  Although 
such  a  speed  as  this  seemed  quite  as  chimerical  as 
propelling  a  ship  through  the  water  against  wind  and 
tide  at  fifteen  miles  an  hour,  or  running  a  locomotive 
on  a  railway  at  fifty,  yet  Mr.  Walter  was  impressed 


Employment  of  Inventors.  191 

with  the  conviction  that  a  much  more  rapid  printing 
of  newspapers  was  feasible  than  by  the  slow  hand- 
labor  process;  and  he  endeavored  to  induce  several  in- 
genious mechanical  contrivers  to  take  up  and  work 
out  his  idea. 

The  principle  of  producing  impressions  by  means  of 
a  cylinder,  and  of  inking  the  types  by  means  of  a  roll- 
er, was  not  new.  We  have  seen,  in  the  preceding  me- 
moir, that  as  early  as  1790  William  Nicholson  had  pat- 
ented such  a  method,  but  his  scheme  had  never  been 
brought  into  practical  operation.  Mr.  Walter  endeav- 
ored to  enlist  Marc  Iambard  Brunei — one  of  the  clev- 
erest inventors  of  the  day — in  his  proposed  method  of 
rapid  printing  by  machinery;  but,  after  laboring  over 
a  variety  of  plans  for  a  considerable  time,  Brunei  final- 
ly gave  up  the  printing  machine,  unable  to  make  any- 
thing of  it.  Mr.  Walter  next  tried  Thomas  Martyn, 
an  ingenious  young  compositor,  who  had  a  scheme  for 
a  self-acting  machine  for  working  the  printing-press. 
He  was  supplied  with  the  necessary  funds  to  enable 
him  to  prosecute  his  idea;  but  as  Mr.  Walter's  father 
was  opposed  to  the  scheme,  and  as  the  funds  became 
exhausted,  this  scheme  also  fell  to  the  ground. 

As  years  passed  on,  the  circulation  of  the  paper  in- 
creased, and  the  necessity  for  some  more  expeditious 
method  of  printing  became  still  more  urgent.  Al- 
though Mr.  Walter  had  declined  to  enter  into  an  ar- 
rangement with  Bensley  in  1809,  before  Koenig  had 
completed  his  invention  of  printing  by  cylinders,  it 
was  different  five  years  later,  when  Koenig's  printing 
machine  was  actually  at  work.  In  the  preceding  me- 
moir, the  circumstances  connected  with  the  adoption 
of  the  invention  by  Mr.  Walter  are  fully  related  ;  as 
well  as  the  announcement  made  in  The  Times  on  the 
29th  of  November,  1814 — the  day  on  which  the  first 
newspaper  printed  by  steam  was  given  to  the  world. 


192  The  Walters  of"  The  Times." 

But  Koenig's  printing  machine  was  but  the  begin- 
ning of  a  great  new  branch  of  industry.  After  he  had 
left  England  in  disgust,  it  remained  for  others  to  per- 
fect the  invention;  although  the  ingenious  German  was 
entitled  to  the  greatest  credit  for  having  made  the 
first  satisfactory  beginning.  Great  inventions  are  not 
brought  forth  at  a  heat.  They  are  begun  by  one  man, 
improved  by  another,  and  perfected  by  a  whole  host  of 
mechanical  inventors.  Numerous  patents  were  taken 
out  for  the  mechanical  improvement  of  printing.  Don- 
kin  and  Bacon  contrived  a  machine  in  1813,  in  which 
the  types  were  placed  on  a  revolving  prism.  One  of 
them  was  made  for  the  University  of  Cambridge,  but 
it  was  found  too  complicated  ;  the  inking  was  defec- 
tive ;  and  the  project  was  abandoned.  In  1815,  Mr. 
Cowper  obtained  a  patent  for  curving  stereotype  plates 
for  the  purpose  of  fixing  them  upon  a  cylinder.  Sev- 
eral of  his  machines  were  used  for  printing  notes  at 
the  Bank  of  England;  but  they  were  never  employed 
on  any  newspaper. 

Mr.  Applegarth  was  the  next  to  improve  newspaper 
printing.  He  was  mechanical  engineer  at  The  Times 
office.  At  first  he  directed  his  attention  to  the  simpli- 
fication of  Koenig's  machine,  and  improved  the  rollers 
by  which  the  types  were  inked.  But  in  1818  —  the 
year  after  Koenig  left  England — Applegarth  and  Cow- 
per patented  important  improvements  in  cylindrical 
printing  machinery.  Two  drums  were  placed  betwixt 
the  cylinders  to  insure  accuracy  in  the  register,  over 
and  under  which  the  sheet  was  conveyed  in  its  prog- 
ress from  one  cylinder  to  the  other  ;  while  at  the 
same  time  further  improvements  were  introduced  in 
the  inking  apparatus.  By  successive  additions  to  the 
machinery — which  formed  the  subjects  of  six  several 
patents  by  Applegarth  and  Cowper — the  rapidity  of 
printing  was  greatly  improved.     The  number  printed 


The  Express  from  Paris.  193 

went  up  from  one  thousand  one  hundred  to  four  or 
five  thousand,  by  the  four  -  cylinder  machines,  per 
hour. 

Mr.  Walter  continued  to  devote  the  same  unremit- 
ting attention  to  his  business  as  before.     He  looked 
into  all  the  details,  was  familiar  with  every  depart- 
ment, and,  on  an  emergency,  was  willing  to  lend  a 
hand  in  any  work  requiring  more  than  ordinary  de- 
spatch.    Thus,  it  is  related  of  him  that,  in  the  spring 
of  1833,  shortly  after  his  return  to  Parliament  as  mem- 
ber for  Berkshire,  he  was  at  The  Times  office  one  day, 
when  an   express   arrived  from  Paris,  bringing  the 
speech  of  the  King  of  the  French  on  the  opening  of 
the  Chambers.     The  express  arrived  at  ten  a.m.,  after 
the  day's  impression  of  the  paper  had  been  published, 
and  the  editors  and  compositors  had  left  the  office. 
It  was  important  that  the  speech  should  be  published 
at  once  ;    and  Mr.  Walter  immediately  set  to  work 
upon  it.     He  first  translated  the  document ;   then,  as- 
sisted by  one  compositor,  he  took  his  place  at  the  type- 
case,  and  set  it  up.     To  the  amazement  of  one  of  the 
staff  who  dropped  in  about  noon,  he  "  found  Mr.  Wal- 
ter, M.P.  for  Berks,  working  in  his  shirt-sleeves  !"    The 
speech  was  set  and  printed,  and  the  second  edition  was 
in  the  City  by  one  o'clock.     Had  he  not  "  turned  to  " 
as  he  did,  the  whole  expense  of  the  express  service 
would  have  been  lost.     And  it  is  probable  that  there 
was  not  another  man  in  the  whole  establishment  who 
could  have  performed  the  double  work — intellectual 
and  physical  —  which  he  that  day  executed  with  his 
own  head  and  hands. 

Such  an  incident  curiously  illustrates  his  eminent 
success  in  life.  It  was  simply  the  result  of  persever- 
ing diligence,  which  shrank  from  no  effort  and  neglect- 
ed no  detail;  as  well  as  of  prudence  allied  to  boldness, 
but  certainly  not  "  of  chance ;"  and,  above  all,  of  high- 

9 


194  The  Walters  of  "  The  Times? 

minded  integrity  and  unimpeachable  honesty.  It  is, 
perhaps,  unnecessary  to  add  more  as  to  the  merits  of 
Mr.  Walter  as  a  man  of  enterprise  in  business,  or  as  a 
public  man  and  a  member  of  Parliament.  The  great 
work  of  his  life  was  the  development  of  his  journal, 
the  history  of  which  forms  the  best  monument  to  his 
merits  and  his  powers. 

The  progressive  improvement  of  steam  printing  ma- 
chinery was  not  affected  by  Mr.  Walter's  death,  which 
occurred  in  1847.  He  had  given  it  an  impulse  which 
it  never  lost.  In  1846  Mr.  Applegarth  patented  certain 
important  improvements  in  the  steam  press.  The  gen- 
eral disposition  of  his  new  machine  was  that  of  a  ver- 
tical cylinder  two  hundred  inches  in  circumference, 
holding  on  it  the  type  and  distributing  surfaces,  and 
surrounded  alternately  by  inking  rollers  and  pressing 
cylinders.  Mr.  Applegarth.  estimated  in  his  specifica- 
tion that  in  his  new  vertical  system  the  machine,  with 
eight  cylinders,  would  print  about  ten  thousand  sheets 
per  hour.  The  new  printing-press  came  into  use  in 
1848,  and  completely  justified  the  anticipations  of  its 
projector. 

Applegarth's  machine,  though  successfully  employed 
at  The  Times  office,  did  not  come  into  general  use.  It 
was,  to  a  large  extent,  superseded  by  the  invention  of 
Richard  M.  Hoe,  of  New  York.  Hoe's  process  con- 
sisted in  placing  the  types  upon  a  horizontal  cylinder, 
against  which  the  sheets  were  pressed  by  exterior  and 
smaller  cylinders.  The  types  were  arranged  in  seg- 
ments of  a  circle,  each  segment  forming  a  frame  that 
could  be  fixed  on  the  cylinder.  These  printing  ma- 
chines were  made  with  from  two  to  ten  subsidiary 
cylinders.  The  first  presses  sent  by  Messrs.  Hoe  &  Co. 
to  this  country  were  for  Lloyd's  'Weekly  Newspaper, 
and  were  of  the  six-cylinder  size.  These  were  followed 
by  two  ten-cylinder  machines,  ordered  by  the  present 


History  of  Stereotyping.  195 

Mr.  Walter,  for  The  Times.  Other  English  newspaper 
proprietors — both  in  London  and  the  provinces — were 
supplied  with  the  machines,  as  many  as  thirty -five 
having  been  imported  from  America  between  1856 
and  1862.  It  may  be  mentioned  that  the  two  ten-cyl- 
inder Hoes  made  for  The  Times  were  driven  at  the 
rate  of  thirty-two  revolutions  per  minute,  which  gives 
a  printing  rate  of  nineteen  thousand  two  hundred  per 
hour,  or  about  sixteen  thousand  including  stoppages. 

Much  of  the  ingenuity  exercised  both  in  the  Apple- 
garth  and  Hoe  machines  was  directed  to  the  "  chase," 
which  had  to  hold  securely  upon  its  curved  face  the 
mass  of  movable  type  required  to  form  a  page.  And 
now  the  enterprise  of  the  proprietor  of  The  Times 
again  came  to  the  front.  The  change  effected  in  the 
art  of  newspaper  printing  by  the  process  of  stereo- 
types, is  scarcely  inferior  to  that  by  which  the  late 
Mr.  Walter  applied  steam-power  to  the  printing-press, 
and  certainly  equal  to  that  by  which  the  rotary  press 
superseded  the  reciprocatory  action  of  the  flat  machine. 
It  was  commenced,  and  has  been  elaborated  to  its  pres- 
ent point,  by  his  son,  the  present  Mr.  Walter,  at  The 
Times  office,  from  which  it  has  been  copied  by  printers 
in  all  parts  of  the  world. 

Stereotyping  has  a  curious  history.  Many  attempts 
were  made  to  obtain  solid  printing-surfaces  by  transfer 
from  similar  surfaces,  composed,  in  the  first  place,  of 
movable  types.  The  first  who  really  succeeded  was 
one  Ged,  an  Edinburgh  goldsmith,  who,  after  a  series 
of  difficult  experiments,  arrived  at  a  knowledge  of  the 
art  of  stereotyping.  The  first  method  employed  was 
to  pour  liquid  stucco,  of  the  consistency  of  cream,  over 
the  types;  and  this,  when  solid,  gave  a  perfect  mould. 
Into  this  the  molten  metal  was  poured,  and  a  plate 
was  produced,  accurately  resembling  the  page  of  type. 
As  long  ago  as  1*730,  Ged  obtained  a  privilege  from 


196  The  Walters  of  "The  Times." 

the  University  of  Cambridge  for  printing  Bibles  and 
Prayer-books  after  this  method.  But  the  workmen 
were  dead  against  it,  as  they  thought  it  would  destroy 
their  trade.  The  compositors  and  the  pressmen  pur- 
posely battered  the  letters  in  the  absence  of  their  em- 
ployers. In  consequence  of  this  interference  Ged  was 
ruined,  and  died  in  poverty. 

The  art  had,  however,  been  born,  and  could  not  be 
kept  down.  It  was  revived  in  France,  in  Germany, 
and  America.  Fifty  years  after  the  discovery  of  Ged, 
Tilloch  and  Foulis,  of  Glasgow,  patented  a  similar  in- 
vention, without  knowing  anything  of  what  Ged  had 
done  ;  and  after  great  labor  and  many  experiments, 
they  produced  plates,  the  impressions  from  which 
could  not  be  distinguished  from  those  taken  from  the 
types  from  which  they  were  cast.  Some  years  after- 
wards, Lord  Stanhope,  to  whom  the  art  of  printing  is 
much  indebted,  greatly  improved  the  art  of  stereotyp- 
ing, though  it  was  still  quite  inapplicable  to  newspaper 
printing.  The  merit  of  this  latter  invention  is  due  to 
the  enterprise  of  the  present  proprietor  of  The  Times. 

Mr.  Walter  began  his  experiments,  aided  by  an  in- 
genious Italian  founder  named  Dellagana,  early  in  1856. 
It  was  ascertained  that  when  papier-mache  matrices 
were  rapidly  dried  and  placed  in  a  mould,  separate 
columns  might  be  cast  in  them  with  stereotype  metal, 
type  high,  planed  flat,  and  finished  with  sufficient  speed 
to  get  up  the  duplicate  of  a  form  of  four  pages  fitted 
for  printing.  Steps  were  taken  to  adapt  these  type- 
high  columns  to  the  Applegarth  presses,  then  worked 
with  polygonal  chases.  When  the  Hoe  machines  were 
introduced,  instead  of  dealing  with  the  separate  col- 
umns, the  papier  -  mdche  matrix  was  taken  from  the 
whole  page  at  one  operation,  by  roller  -  presses  con- 
structed for  the  purpose.  The  impression  taken  off 
in  this  manner  is  as  perfect  as  if  it  had  been  made  in 


Newspaper  Stereotyping.  197 

the  finest  wax.  The  matrix  is  rapidly  dried  on  heat- 
ing surfaces,  and  then  accurately  adjusted  in  a  casting 
machine  curved  to  the  exact  circumference  of  the  main 
drum  of  the  printing-press,  and  fitted  with  a  terra-cotta 
top  to  secure  a  casting  of  uniform  thickness.  On  pour- 
ing stereotype  metal  into  this  mould,  a  curved  plate 
was  obtained,  which,  after  undergoing  a  certain  amount 
of  trimming  at  two  machines,  could  be  taken  to  press 
and  set  to  work  within  twenty-five  minutes  from  the 
time  at  which  the  process  began. 

Besides  the  great  advantages  obtained  from  uniform 
sets  of  the  plates,  which  might  be  printed  on  different 
machines  at  the  rate  of  fifty  thousand  impressions  an 
hour,  or  such  additional  number  as  might  be  required, 
there  is  this  other  great  advantage,  that  there  is  no 
wear  and  tear  of  type  in  the  curved  chases  by  obstruc- 
tive friction  ;  and  that  the  font,  instead  of  wearing 
out  in  two  years,  might  last  for  twenty;  for  the  plates, 
after  doing  their  work  for  one  day,  are  melted  down 
into  a  new  impression  for  the  next  day's  printing.  At 
the  same  time,  the  original  type-page,  safe  from  injury, 
can  be  made  to  yield  any  number  of  copies  that  may 
be  required  by  the  exigencies  of  the  circulation.  It 
will  be  sufficiently  obvious  that  by  the  multiplication 
of  stereotype  plates  and  printing  machines,  there  is 
practically  no  limit  to  the  number  of  copies  of  a  news- 
paper that  may  be  printed  within  the  time  which  the 
process  now  usually  occupies. 

This  new  method  of  newspaper  stereotyping  was 
originally  employed  on  the  cylinders  of  the  Applegarth 
and  Hoe  presses.  But  it  is  equally  applicable  to  those 
of  the  Walter  Press,  a  brief  description  of  which  we 
now  subjoin.  As  the  construction  of  the  first  steam 
newspaper  machine  was  due  to  the  enterprise  of  the 
late  Mr.  Walter,  so  the  construction  of  this  last  and 
most  improved  machine  is  due  in  like  manner  to  the 


198  The  Walters  of  "  The  Times!' 

enterprise  of  his  son.  The  new  Walter  Press  is  not, 
like  Applegarth  and  Cowper's,  and  Hoe's,  the  improve- 
ment of  an  existing  arrangement,  but  an  almost  entire- 
ly original  invention. 

In  the  "  Reports  of  the  Jurors  on  the  Plate,  Letter- 
press, and  other  Modes  of  Printing,"  at  the  Interna- 
tional Exhibition  of  1862,  the  following  passage  occurs: 
"It  is  incumbent  on  the  reporters  to  point  out  that, 
excellent  and  surprising  as  are  the  results  achieved  by 
the  Hoe  and  Applegarth  machines,  they  cannot  be  con- 
sidered satisfactory  while  those  machines  themselves 
are  so  liable  to  stoppages  in  working.  No  true  me- 
chanic can  contrast  the  immense  American  ten-cylin- 
der presses  of  The  Times  with  the  simple  calico  print- 
ing machine,  without  feeling  that  the  latter  furnishes 
the  true  type  to  which  the  mechanism  for  newspaper 
printing  should  as  much  as  possible  approximate." 

On  this  principle,  so  clearly  put  forward,  the  invent- 
ors of  the  Walter  Press  proceeded  in  the  contrivance 
of  the  new  machine.  It  is  true  that  William  Nichol- 
son, in  his  patent  of  1*790,  prefigured  the  possibility  of 
printing  on  "  paper,  linen,  cotton,  woollen,  and  other  ar- 
ticles," by  means  of  type  fixed  on  the  outer  surface  of 
a  revolving  cylinder;  but  no  steps  were  taken  to  carry 
his  views  into  effect.  Sir  Rowland  Hill  also,  before  he 
became  connected  with  post-office  reform,  revived  the 
contrivance  of  Nicholson,  and  referred  to  it  in  his  pat- 
ent of  1835  (No.  6762)  ;  and  he  also  proposed  to  use 
continuous  rolls  of  paper,  which  Fourdrinier  and  Don- 
kin  had  made  practicable  by  their  invention  of  the 
paper-making  machine  about  the  year  1804;  but  both 
Nicholson's  and  Hill's  patents  remained  a  dead  let- 
ter.* 

*  After  the  appearance  of  my  article  on  the  Koenig  and  "Walter 
Presses  in  Macmillans  Magazine  for  December,  1869,  I  received  the 
following  letter  from  Sir  Rowland  Hill : 


Construction  of  Presses.  199 

It  may  be  easy  to  conceive  a  printing  machine,  or 
even  to  make  a  model  of  one;  but  to  construct  an  act- 
ual working  printing-press,  that  must  be  sure  and  un- 
failing in  its  operations,  is  a  matter  surrounded  with 
difficulties.  At  every  step  fresh  contrivances  have  to 
be  introduced;  they  have  to  be  tried  again  and  again; 
perhaps  they  are  eventually  thrown  aside  to  give  place 
to  new  arrangements.  Thus  the  head  of  the  inventor 
is  kept  in  a  state  of  constant  turmoil.  Sometimes  the 
whole  machine  has  to  be  remodelled  from  beginning 
to  end.  One  step  is  gained  by  degrees,  then  another; 
and  at  last,  after  years  of  labor,  the  new  invention 

"Hampstkad,  January  5th,  18T0. 
"My  Dear  Sir, — In  your  very  interesting  article  in  Macmillan's 
Magazine  on  the  subject  of  the  printing  machine,  you  have  uncon- 
sciously done  me  some  injustice.  To  convince  yourself  of  this,  you 
have  only  to  read  the  enclosed  paper.  The  case,  however,  will  be 
strengthened  when  I  tell  you  that  as  far  back  as  the  year  1856,  that 
is,  seven  years  after  the  expiry  of  my  patent,  I  pointed  out  to  Mr. 
Mowbray  Morris,  the  manager  of  The  Times,  the  fitness  of  my  ma- 
chine for  the  printing  of  that  journal,  and  the  fact  that  serious  diffi- 
culties'to  its  adoption  had  been  removed.  I  also,  at  his  request,  fur- 
nished him  with  a  copy  of  the  document  with  which  I  now  trouble 
you.  Feeling  sure  that  you  would  like  to  know  the  truth  on  any  sub- 
ject of  which  you  may  treat,  I  should  be  glad  to  explain  the  matter 
more  fully,  and  for  this  purpose  will,  with  your  permission,  call  upon 
you  at  any  time  you  may  do  me  the  favor  to  appoint. 

"Faithfully  yours,  Rowland  Hill." 

On  further  inquiry  I  obtained  the  Patent  No.  6762  ;  but  found  that 
nothing  practical  had  ever  come  of  it.  The  pamphlet  enclosed  by  Sir 
Rowland  Hill  in  the  above  letter  is  entitled  "  The  Rotary  Printing 
Machine."  It  is  very  clever  and  ingenious,  like  everything  he  did. 
But  it  was  still  left  for  some  one  else  to  work  out  the  invention  into  a 
practical  working  printing-press.  The  subject  is  fully  referred  to  in 
the  "Life  of  Sir  Rowland  Hill  "  (vol.  i.  p.  224,  525).  In  his  final  word 
on  the  subject,  Sir  Rowland  "gladly  admits  the  enormous  difficulty  of 
bringing  a  complex  machine  into  practical  «se,"a  difficulty,  he  says, 
which  "  has  been  most  successfully  overcome  by  the  patentees  of  the 
Walter  Press." 


200  The  Walters  of  "The  Times." 

comes  before  the  world  in  the  form  of  a  practical 
working  machine. 

In  1862  Mr.  Walter  began  in  The  Times  office,  with 
tools  and  machinery  of  his  own,  experiments  for  con- 
structing a  perfecting  -  press  which  should  print  the 
paper  from  rolls  of  paper  instead  of  from  sheets.  Like 
his  father,  Mr.  Walter  possessed  an  excellent  discrim- 
ination of  character,  and  selected  the  best  men  to  aid 
him  in  his  inrportant  undertaking.  Numerous  difficul- 
ties had,  of  course,  to  be  surmounted.  Plans  were  va- 
ried from  time  to  time  ;  new  methods  were  tried,  al- 
tered, and  improved,  simplification  being  aimed  at 
throughout.  Six  long  years  passed  in  this  pursuit  of 
the  possible.  At  length  the  clear  light  dawned.  In 
1868  Mr.  Walter  ventured  to  order  the  construction  of 
three  machines  on  the  pattern  of  the  first  complete  one 
which  had  been  made.  By  the  end  of  1869  these  were 
finished  and  placed  in  a  room  by  themselves  ;  and  a 
fourth  was  afterwards  added.  There  the  printing  of 
The  Times  is  now  done,  in  less  than  half  the  time  it 
previously  occujned,  and  with  one-fifth  the  number  of 
hands. 

The  most  remarkable  feature  in  the  Walter  Press  is 
its  wonderful  simplicity  of  construction.  Simplicity 
of  arrangement  is  always  the  beau  ideal  of  the  me- 
chanical engineer.  This  printing-press  is  not  only 
simple,  but  accurate,  compact,  rapid,  and  economical. 
While  each  of  the  ten-feeder  Hoe  machines  occupies 
a  large  and  lofty  room,  and  requires  eighteen  men  to 
feed  and  work  it,  the  new  Walter  machine  occupies  a 
space  of  only  about  fourteen  feet  by  five,  or  less  than 
any  newspaper  machine  yet  introduced;  and  it  requires 
only  three  lads  to  take  away,  with  half  the  attention 
of  an  overseer,  who  easily  superintends  two  of  the  ma- 
chines while  at  work.  The  Hoe  machine  turns  out 
seven  thousand  impressions  printed  on  both  sides  in 


The  Walter  Press.  201 

the  hour,  whereas  the  Walter  machine  turns  out  twelve 
thousand  impressions  completed  in  the  same  time. 

The  new  Walter  Press  does  not  in  the  least  resemble 
any  existing  printing  machine,  unless  it  be  the  calen- 
dering machine  which  furnished  its  type.  At  the 
printing  end  it  looks  like  a  collection  of  small  cylin- 
ders or  rollers.  The  first  thing  to  be  observed  is  the 
continuous  roll  of  paper,  four  miles  long,  tightly  mount- 
ed on  a  reel,  which,  when  the  machine  is  going,  flies 
round  with  immense  rapidity.  The  web  of  paper  taken 
up  by  the  first  roller  is  led  into  a  series  of  small  hollow 
cylinders  filled  with  water  and  steam,  perforated  with 
thousands  of  minute  holes.  By  this  means  the  paper 
is  properly  damped  before  the  process  of  printing  is 
begun.  The  roll  of  paper,  drawn  by  nipping  rollers, 
next  flies  through  to  the  cylinder  on  which  the  stereo- 
type plates  are  fixed,  so  as  to  form  the  four  pages  of 
the  ordinary  sheet  of  The  Times  /  there  it  is  lightly 
pressed  against  the  type  and  printed ;  then  it  passes 
downwards  round  another  cylinder  covered  with  cloth, 
and  reversed;  next  to  the  second  type-covered  roller, 
where  it  takes  the  impression  exactly  on  the  other  side 
of  the  remaining  four  pages.  It  next  reaches  one  of 
the  most  ingenious  contrivances  of  the  invention — the 
cutting  machinery — by  means  of  which  the  paper  is 
divided  by  a  quick  knife  into  the  five  thousand  five 
hundred  sheets  of  which  the  entire  web  consists.  The 
tapes  hurry  the  now  completely  printed  newspaper  up 
an  inclined  plane,  from  which  the  divided  sheets  are 
showered  down  in  a  continuous  stream  by  an  oscillat- 
ing frame,  where  they  are  met  by  two  boys,  who  ad- 
just the  sheets  as  they  fall.  The  reel  of  four  miles 
long  is  printed  and  divided  into  newspapers  complete 
in  about  twenty-five  minutes. 

The  machine  is  almost  entirely  self-acting,  from  the 
pumping  up  of  the  ink  into  the  ink-box  out  of  the  cis- 

9* 


202  The  Walters  of  "The  Times? 

tern  below  stairs  to  the  registering  of  the  numbers  as 
they  are  printed  in  the  manager's  room  above.  It  is 
always  difficult  to  describe  a  machine  in  words.  Noth- 
ing but  a  series  of  sections  and  diagrams  could  give 
the  reader  an  idea  of  the  construction  of  this  unri- 
valled instrument.  The  time  to  see  it  and  wonder  at 
it  is  when  the  press  is  in  full  work.  And  even  then 
you  can  see  but  little  of  its  construction,  for  the  cyl- 
inders are  wheeling  round  with  immense  velocity. 
The  rapidity  with  which  the  machine  works  may  be 
inferred  from  the  fact  that  the  printing  cylinders 
(round  which  the  stereotyped  plates  are  fixed),  while 
making  their  impressions  on  the  paper,  travel  at  the 
surprising  speed  of  two  hundred  revolutions  a  minute, 
or  at  the  rate  of  about  nine  miles  an  hour  ! 

Contrast  this  speed  with  the  former  slowness.  Go 
back  to  the  beginning  of  the  century.  Before  the  year 
1814  the  turn-out  of  newspapers  was  only  about  three 
hundred  single  impressions  in  an  hour;  that  is,  impres- 
sions printed  only  on  one  side  of  the  paper.  Koenig, 
by  his  invention,  increased  the  issue  to  one  thousand 
one  hundred  impressions.  Applegarth  and  Cowper, 
by  their  four-cylinder  machine,  increased  the  issue  to 
four  thousand,  and  by  the  eight-cylinder  machine  to 
ten  thousand  an  hour.  But  these  were  only  impres- 
sions printed  on  one  side  of  the  paper.  The  first  per- 
fecting-press — that  is,  printing  simultaneously  the  pa- 
per on  both  sides — was  the  Walter,  the  speed  of  which 
has  been  raised  to  twelve  thousand,  though,  if  neces- 
sary, it  can  produce  excellent  work  at  the  rate  of  sev- 
enteen thousand  complete  copies  of  an  eight -page 
paper  per  hour.  Then,  with  the  new  method  of  ster- 
eotyping—  by  means  of  which  the  plates  can  be 
infinitely  multiplied  —  and  by  the  aid  of  additional 
machines,  the  supply  of  additional  impressions  is  ab- 
solutely unlimited. 


Papers  Printed  on  the  Walter  Press.       203 

The  Walter  press  is  not  a  monopoly.  It  is  manu- 
factured at  The  Times  office,  and  is  supplied  to  all 
comers.  Among  the  other  daily  papers  printed  by  its 
means  in  this  country  are  the  Daily  JVeics,  the  Scots- 
man, and  the  Birmingham  Daily  Post.  The  first 
Walter  press  was  sent  to  America  in  1872,  where  it 
was  employed  to  print  the  Missouri  Republican,  at  St. 
Louis,  the  leading  newspaper  of  the  Mississippi  Val- 
ley. An  engineer  and  a  skilled  workman  from  The 
Times  office  accompanied  the  machinery.  On  arriving 
at  St.  Louis,  the  materials  were  unpacked,  lowered  into 
the  machine-room,  where  they  were  erected  and  ready 
for  work  in  the  short  space  of  five  days. 

The  Walter  press  was  an  object  of  great  interest  at 
the  Centennial  Exhibition  held  at  Philadelphia  in  1876, 
where  it  was  shown  printing  the  JVeto  York  Times,  one 
of  the  most  influential  journals  in  America.  The  press 
was  surrounded  with  crowds  of  visitors  intently  watch- 
ing its  perfect  and  regular  action, "  like  a  thing  of  life." 
The  New  York  Times  said  of  it:  "The  W alter  press 
is  the  most  perfect  printing-press  yet  known  to  man ; 
invented  by  the  most  powerful  journal  of  the  Old 
World,  and  adopted  as  the  very  best  press  to  be  had 
for  its  purposes  by  the  most  influential  journal  of  the 
New  World.  ...  It  is  an  honor  to  Great  Britain  to 
have  such  an  exhibit  in  her  display,  and  a  lasting  ben- 
efit to  the  printing  business,  especially  to  newspapers. 
.  .  .  The  first  printing-press  run  by  steam  was  erected 
in  the  year  1814,  in  the  office  of  The  Times,  by  the 
father  of  him  who  is  the  present  proprietor  of  that 
world-famous  journal.  The  machine  of  1814  was  de- 
scribed in  The  Times  of  the  29th  of  November  in  that 
year,  and  the  account  given  of  it  closed  in  these  words : 
'The  whole  of  these  complicated  acts  is  performed 
with  such  a  velocity  and  simultaneousness  of  move- 
ment that  no  less  than  eleven  thousand  sheets  are  im- 


204:  The  Walters  of  " The  Times" 

pressed  in  one  hour.'  MiraMle  dictu  !  And  the  Wal- 
ter press  of  to-day  can.  run  off  seventeen  thousand 
copies  an  hour,  printed  on  both  sides.  This  is  not 
bad  work  for  one  man's  lifetime." 

It  is  unnecessary  to  say  more  about  this  marvellous 
machine.  Its  completion  forms  the  crown  of  the  in- 
dustry which  it  represents,  and  of  the  enterprise  of 
the  journal  which  it  prints. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

WILLIAM   CLOWES, 
INTRODUCER   OF   BOOK-PRINTING   BY   STEAM. 

"  The  Images  of  men's  wits  and  knowledges  remain  in  Books,  ex- 
empted from  the  wrong  of  time,  and  capable  of  perpetual  renovation. 
Neither  are  they  fitly  to  be  called  Images,  because  they  generate  still, 
and  cast  their  seeds  in  the  minds  of  others,  provoking  and  causing 
infinite  actions  and  opinions  in  succeeding  ages ;  so  that,  if  the  inven- 
tion of  the  Ship  was  thought  so  noble,  which  carrieth  riches  and  com- 
modities from  place  to  place,  and  consociateth  the  most  remote  Re- 
gions in  participation  of  their  Fruits,  how  much  more  are  letters  to  be 
magnified,  which,  as  Ships,  pass  through  the  vast  Seas  of  time,  and 
make  ages  so  distant  to  participate  of  the  wisdom,  illuminations,  and 
inventions,  the  one  of  the  other  ?" — Bacon  :  On  the  Prqficience  and 
Advancement  of  Learning. 

Steam  has  proved  as  useful  and  potent  in  the  print- 
ing of  books  as  in  the  printing  of  newspapers.  Down 
to  the  end  of  last  century  "the  divine  art,"  as  print- 
ing was  called,  had  made  comparatively  little  prog- 
ress. That  is  to  say,  although  books  could  be  beauti- 
fully printed  by  hand-labor,  they  could  not  be  turned 
out  in  any  large  numbers. 

The  early  printing-press  was  rude.  It  consisted  of 
a  table,  along  which  the  form  of  type,  furnished  with 
a  tympan  and  frisket,  was  pushed  by  hand.  The 
platen  worked  vertically  between  standards,  and  was 
brought  down  for  the  impression,  and  raised  after  it, 
by  a  common  screw,  worked  by  a  bar  handle.  The 
inking  was  performed  by  balls  covered  with  skin  pelts; 
they  were  blacked  with  ink,  and  beaten  down  on  the 


206  William  Clmoes. 


type  by  the  pressman.  The  inking  was  consequently 
irregular. 

In  1798,  Earl  Stanhope  perfected  the  press  that  bears 
his  name.  He  did  not  patent  it,  but  made  his  inven- 
tion over  to  the  public.  The  inking  was  also  improved. 
Cylinders,  covered  with  a  composition  of  treacle  and 
glue,  were  used  instead  of  balls  ;  and  these,  covered 
with  ink,  were  rolled  over  the  type.  The  ink  was 
thus  applied  in  a  more  even  manner,  and  with  a  con- 
siderable decrease  of  labor.  With  the  Stanhope  press 
printing  was  as  far  advanced  as  it  could  possibly  be 
by  means  of  hand-labor.  About  two  hundred  and  fifty 
impressions  could  be  taken  off,  on  one  side,  in  an  hour. 

But  this,  after  all,  was  a  very  small  result.  When 
books  were  produced  so  slowly  there  could  be  no 
popular  literature.  Books  were  still  articles  for  the 
few  instead  of  the  many.  Steam-power,  however, 
completely  altered  the  state  of  affairs.  When  Koe- 
nig  invented  his  steam  press  he  showed,  by  the  print- 
ing of  Clarkson's  "Life  of  Penn" — the  first  sheets  ever 
printed  with  a  cylindrical  press — that  books  might  be 
printed  neatly,  as  well  as  cheaply,  by  the  new  machine. 
Mr.  Bensley  continued  the  process  after  Koenig  left 
England;  and  in  1824,  according  to  Johnson,  in  his 
" Typographia,"  his  son  was  "driving  an  extensive 
business." 

In  the  following  year,  1825,  Archibald  Constable,  of 
Edinburgh,  propounded  his  plan  for  revolutionizing 
the  art  of  bookselling.  Instead  of  books  being  articles 
of  luxury,  he  proposed  to  bring  them  into  general  con- 
sumption. He  would  sell  them,  not  by  thousands,  but 
by  hundreds  of  thousands,  "ay,  by  millions;"  and  he 
would  accomplish  this  by  the  new  methods  of  multi- 
plication— by  machine  printing  and  by  steam-power. 
Mr.  Constable  accordingly  issued  a  library  of  excel- 
lent books;  and,  although  he  was  ruined — not  by  this 


His  Early  Life.  207 


enterprise,  but  the  other  speculations  into  which  he 
entered — he  set  the  example  which  other  enterprising 
minds  were  ready  to  follow.  Among  these  was  Charles 
Knight,  who  set  the  steam  presses  of  William  Clowes 
to  work  for  the  purposes  of  the  Society  for  the  Diffu- 
sion of  Useful  Knowledge. 

William  Clowes  was  the  founder  of  the  vast  print- 
ing establishment  which  bears  his  name ;  and  his 
career  furnishes  another  striking  illustration  of  the 
force  of  industry  and  character.  He  was  born  on  the 
1st  of  January,  1779.  His  father  was  educated  at 
Oxford,  and  kept  a  large  school  at  Chichester ;  but, 
dying  when  William  was  but  an  infant,  he  left  his 
widow,  with  straitened  means,  to  bring  up  her  family. 
At  a  proper  age,  William  was  bound  apprentice  to  a 
printer  at  Chichester;  and,  after  serving  him  for  seven 
years,  he  came  up  to  London,  at  the  beginning  of  1802, 
to  seek  employment  as  a  journeyman.  He  succeeded  in 
finding  work  at  a  small  office  on  Tower-hill,  at  a  small 
wage.  The  first  lodgings  he  took  cost  him  55.  a  week; 
but,  finding  this  beyond  his  means,  he  hired  a  room  in 
a  garret  at  25.  6c?.,  which  was  as  much  as  he  could  af- 
ford out  of  his  scanty  earnings. 

The  first  job  he  was  put  to  was  the  setting  up  of  a 
large  poster-bill,  a  kind  of  work  which  he  had  been  ac- 
customed to  execute  in  the  country,  and  he  knocked 
it  together  so  expertly  that  his  master,  Mr.  Teape,  on 
seeing  what  he  could  do,  said  to  him,  "Ah!  I  find  you 
are  just  the  fellow  for  me."  The  young  man,  how- 
ever, felt  so  strange  in  London,  where  he  was  without 
a  friend  or  acquaintance,  that,  at  the  end  of  the  first 
month,  he  thought  of  leaving  it,  and  yearned  to  go 
back  to  his  native  city.  But  he  had  not  funds  enough 
to  enable  him  to  follow  his  inclinations,  and  he  ac- 
cordingly remained  in  the  great  city,  to  work,  to  per- 
severe, and  finally  to  prosper.    He  continued  at  Teape's 


208  William  Clowes. 


for  about  two  years,  living  frugally,  and  even  contriv- 
ing to  save  a  little  money. 

He  then  thought  of  beginning  business  on  his  own 
account.  The  small  scale  on  which  printing  was  car- 
ried on  in  those  days  enabled  him  to  make  a  start  with 
comparatively  little  capital.  By  means  of  his  own 
savings  and  the  help  of  his  friends,  he  was  enabled  to 
take  a  little  printing-office  in  Villiers  Street,  Strand, 
about  the  end  of  1803  ;  and  then  he  began  with  one 
printing-press  and  one  assistant.  His  stock  of  type 
was  so  small  that  he  was  under  the  necessity  of  work- 
ing it  from  day  to  day  like  a  banker's  gold.  When 
his  first  job  came  in,  he  continued  to  work  for  the 
greater  part  of  three  nights,  setting  the  type  during 
the  day,  and  working  it  off  at  night,  in  order  that  the 
type  might  be  distributed  for  resetting  on  the  follow- 
ing morning.  He  succeeded,  however,  in  executing 
his  first  job  to  the  entire  satisfaction  of  his  first  cus- 
tomer. 

His  business  gradually  increased;  and  then,  with  his 
constantly  saved  means,  he  was  enabled  to  increase  his 
stock  of  type,  and  to  undertake  larger  jobs.  Industry 
always  tells,  and  in  the  long-run  leads  to  prosperity. 
He  married  early,  but  he  married  well.  He  was  only 
twenty-four  when  he  found  his  best  fortune  in  a  good, 
affectionate  wife.  Through  this  lady's  cousin,  Mr. 
Winchester,  the  young  printer  was  shortly  introduced 
to  important  official  business.  His  punctual  execution 
of  orders,  the  accuracy  of  his  work,  and  the  despatch 
with  which  he  turned  it  out,  soon  brought  him  friends, 
and  his  obliging  and  kindly  disposition  firmly  secured 
them.  Thus,  in  a  few  years,  the  humble  beginner  with 
one  press  became  a  printer  on  a  large  scale.  The 
small  concern  expanded  into  a  considerable  printing- 
office  in  Northumberland  Court,  which  was  furnished 
with  many  presses  and  a  large  stock  of  type.    The 


His  Aims.  209 

office  was,  unfortunately,  burned  down,  but  a  larger 
office  rose  in  its  place. 

What  Mr.  Clowes  principally  aimed  at  in  carrying 
on  his  business  Was,  accuracy,  speed,  and  quantity. 
He  did  not  seek  to  produce  editions  de  luxe  in  limited 
numbers,  but  large  impressions  of  works  in  popular 
demand  —  travels,  biographies,  histories,  blue-books, 
and  official  reports,  in  any  quantity.  For  this  pur- 
pose he  found  the  process  of  hand-printing  too  tedious, 
as  well  as  too  costly,  and  hence  he  early  turned  his  at- 
tention to  book-printing  by  machine  presses  driven  by 
steam-power,  in  this  matter  following  the  example  of 
Mr.  Walter  of  The  Times,  who  had  for  some  years  em- 
ployed the  same  method  for  newspaper  printing. 

Applegarth  and  Cowper's  machines  had  greatly  ad- 
vanced the  art  of  printing.  They  secured  perfect  reg- 
ister, and  the  sheets  were  printed  off  more  neatly, 
regularly,  and  expeditiously  than  by  any  other  meth- 
od. In  1823,  accordingly,  Mr.  Clowes  erected  his  first 
steam-presses,  and  he  soon  found  abundance  of  work 
for  them.  But  to  produce  steam  requires  boilers  and 
engines,  the  working  of  which  occasions  smoke  and 
noise.  Now,  as  the  printing-office,  with  its  steam 
presses,  was  situated  in  Northumberland  Court,  close 
to  the  palace  of  the  Duke  of  Northumberland,  at  Char- 
ing Cross,  Mr.  Clowes  was  required  to  abate  the  nuis- 
ance, and  to  stop  the  noise  and  dirt  occasioned  by  the 
use  of  his  engines.  This  he  failed  to  do,  and  the  duke 
commenced  an  action  against  him. 

The  case  was  tried  in  June,  1824,  in  the  Court  of 
Common  Pleas.  It  was  ludicrous  to  hear  the  extrav- 
agant terms  in  which  the  counsel  for  the  plaintiff  and 
his  witnesses  described  the  nuisance — the  noise  made 
by  the  engine  in  the  underground  cellar,  sometimes 
like  thunder,  at  other  times  like  a  threshing-machine, 
and  then  again  like  the  rumbling  of  carts  and  wagons. 


210  William  Clowes. 


The  printer  had  retained  the  attorney  -  general,  Mr. 
Copley,  afterwards  Lord  Lyndhurst,  who  conducted 
his  case  with  surprising  ability.  The  cross-examina- 
tion of  a  foreign  artist,  employed  by  the  duke  to  re- 
paint some  portraits  of  the  Cornaro  family  by  Titian, 
is  said  to  have  been  one  of  the  finest  things  on  record. 
The  sly  and  pungent  humor,  and  the  banter  with  which 
the  counsel  derided  and  laughed  down  this  witness, 
were  inimitable.  The  printer  won  his  case,  but  he 
eventually  consented  to  remove  his  steam  presses  from 
the  neighborhood  on  the  duke  paying  him  a  certain 
sum  to  be  determined  by  the  award  of  arbitrators. 

It  happened  about  this  period  that  a  sort  of  murrain 
fell  upon  the  London  publishers.  After  the  failure  of 
Constable,  at  Edinburgh,  they  came  down  one  after 
another  like  a  pack  of  cards.  Authors  are  not  the 
only  people  who  lose  labor  and  money  by  publishers  ; 
there  are  also  cases  where  publishers  are  ruined  by 
authors.  Printers,  also,  now  lost  heavily.  In  one 
week  Mr.  Clowes  sustained  losses  through  the  failure 
of  London  publishers  to  the  extent  of  about  £25,000. 
Happily,  the  large  sum  which  the  arbitrators  awarded 
hini  for  the  removal  of  his  printing-presses  enabled 
him  to  tide  over  the  difficulty;  he  stood  his  ground 
unshaken,  and  his  character  in  the  trade  stood  higher 
than  ever. 

In  the  following  year  Mr.  Clowes  removed  to  Duke 
Street,  Blackfriars,  where  large  premises  were  erected 
upon  the  site  of  Applegarth  and  Cowper's  machine- 
works.  There  his  business  transactions  assumed  a 
form  of  unprecedented  magnitude,  and  kept  pace  with 
the  great  demand  for  popular  information  which  set  in 
with  such  force  about  fifty  years  ago.  In  the  course 
of  ten  years  —  as  we  find  from  the  "Encyclopaedia 
Metropolitana  " — there  were  twenty  of  Applegarth  and 
Cowper's  machines,  worked  by  two  five-horse  engines. 


Charles  KnigMs  Publications.  211 

From  these  presses  were  issued  the  numerous  admira- 
ble volumes  and  publications  of  the  Society  for  the  Dif- 
fusion of  Useful  Knowledge;  the  treatises  on  "Physi- 
ology," by  Roget,  and  "  Animal  Mechanics,"  by  Charles 
Bell  ;  the  "  Elements  of  Physics,"  by  Neill  Arnott ; 
"The  Pursuit  of  Knowledge  under  Difficulties,"  by  G. 
L.  Craik,  a  most  fascinating  book  ;  the  "  Library  of 
Useful  Knowledge;"  the  Penny  Magazine,  the  first 
illustrated  publication,  and  the  Penny  Cyclopaedia, 
that  admirable  compendium  of  knowledge  and  science. 

These  publications  were  of  great  use.  Some  of 
them  were  printed  in  great  numbers.  The  Penny 
Magazine,  of  which  Charles  Knight  was  editor,  was 
perhaps  too  good,  because  it  was  too  scientific.  Nev- 
ertheless, it  reached  a  circulation  of  two  hundred 
thousand  copies.  The  Penny  Cyclopcedia  was  still 
better.  It  was  original,  and  yet  cheap.  The  articles 
were  written  by  the  best  men  that  could  be  found  in 
their  special  departments  of  knowledge.  The  sale  was 
originally  seventy -five  thousand  weekly ;  but,  as  the 
plan  enlarged,  the  price  was  increased  from  Id.  to  2d., 
and  then  to  4d.  At  the  end  of  the  second  year  the 
circulation  had  fallen  to  forty-four  thousand,  and  at 
the  end  of  the  third  year  to  twenty  thousand. 

It  was  unfortunate  for  Mr.  Knight  to  be  so  much 
under  the  influence  of  his  society.  Had  the  Cyclo- 
pcedia  been  under  his  own  superintendence  it  would 
have  founded  his  fortune.  As  it  was,  he  lost  over 
£30,000  by  the  venture.  The  Penny  Magazine,  also, 
went  down  in  circulation,  until  it  became  a  non-pay- 
ing publication,  and  then  it  was  discontinued.  It  is 
curious  to  contrast  the  fortunes  of  William  Chambers, 
of  Edinburgh,  with  those  of  Charles  Knight,  of  Lon- 
don. Chambers's  Edinburgh  Journal  was  begun  in 
February,  1832,  and  the  Penny  Magazine  in  March, 
1832.     Chambers  was,  perhaps,  shrewder  than  Knight. 


212  William  Clowes. 


His  journal  was  as  good,  though  without  illustrations; 
but  he  contrived  to  mix  up  amusement  with  useful 
knowledge.  It  may  be  a  weakness,  but  the  public  like 
to  be  entertained,  even  while  they  are  feeding  upon 
better  food.  Hence  Chambers  succeeded,  while  Knight 
failed.  The  Penny  Magazine  was  discontinued  in  1845, 
whereas  Chambers's  Edinburgh  Journal  has  maintained 
its  popularity  to  the  present  day.  Chambers,  also,  like 
Knight,  published  an  "  Encyclopaedia,"  which  secured 
a  large  circulation.  But  he  was  not  trammelled  by  a 
society,  and  the  "  Encyclopaedia  "  has  become  a  valu- 
able property. 

The  publication  of  these  various  works  would  not 
have  been  possible  without  the  aid  of  the  steam  print- 
ing-press. When  Mr.  Edward  Cowper  was  examined 
before  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons,  he  said, 
"  The  ease  with  which  the  principles  and  illustrations 
of  art  might  be  diffused  is,  I  think,  so  obvious  that  it 
is  hardly  necessary  to  say  a  word  about  it.  Here  you 
may  see  it  exemplified  in  the  Penny  Magazine.  Such 
works  as  this  could  not  have  existed  without  the  print- 
ing machine."  He  was  asked,  "In  fact,  the  mechan- 
ic and  the  peasant,  in  the  most  remote  parts  of  the 
country,  have  now  an  opportunity  of  seeing  tolerably 
correct  outlines  of  form  which  they  never  could 
behold  before?"  To  which  he  answered,  "Exactly; 
and,  literally,  at  the  price  they  used  to  give  for  a  song." 
"Is  there  not,  therefore,  a  greater  chance  of  calling 
genius  into  activity?"  "Yes,"  he  said,  "not  merely 
by  books  creating  an  artist  here  and  there,  but  by  the 
general  elevation  of  the  taste  of  the  public." 

Mr.  Clowes  was  always  willing  to  promote  deserv- 
ing persons  in  his  office.  One  of  these  rose  from  step 
to  step,  and  eventually  became  one  of  the  most  pros- 
perous publishers  in  London.  He  entered  the  service 
as  an  errand-boy,  and  got  his  meals  in  the  kitchen. 


His  Apprentice,  John  Parker.  213 

Being  fond  of  reading,  he  petitioned  Mrs.  Clowes  to 
let  him  sit  somewhere,  apart  from  the  other  servants, 
where  he  might  read  his  book  in  quiet.  Mrs.  Clowes 
at  length  entreated  her  husband  to  take  him  into  the 
office,  for  "Johnnie  Parker  was  such  a  good  boy." 
He  consented,  and  the  boy  took  his  place  at  a  clerk's 
desk.  He  was  well-behaved,  diligent,  and  attentive. 
As  he  advanced  in  years,  his  steady  and  steadfast  con- 
duct showed  that  he  could  be  trusted.  Young  fellows 
like  these  always  make  their  way  in  life;  for  character 
invariably  tells,  not  only  in  securing  respect,  but  in 
commanding  confidence.  Parker  was  promoted  from 
one  post  to  another,  until  he  was  at  length  appointed 
overseer  over  the  entire  establishment. 

A  circumstance  shortly  after  occurred  which  enabled 
Mr.  Clowes  to  advance  him,  though  greatly  to  his  own 
inconvenience,  to  another  important  post.  The  syn- 
dics of  Cambridge  were  desirous  that  Mr.  Clowes 
should  go  down  there  to  set  their  printing-office  in 
order  ;  they  offered  him  £400  a  year  if  he  would  only 
appear  occasionally,  and  see  that  the  organization  was 
kept  complete.  He  declined,  because  the  magnitude 
of  his  own  operations  had  now  become  so  great  that 
they  required  his  unremitting  attention.  He,  however, 
strongly  recommended  Parker  to  the  office,  though 
he  could  ill  spare  him.  But  he  would  not  stand  in 
the  young  man's  way,  and  he  was  appointed  accord- 
ingly. He  did  his  work  most  effectually  at  Cambridge, 
and  put  the  University  Press  into  thorough  working 
order. 

As  the  Penny  Magazine  and  other  publications  of 
the  Society  of  Useful  Knowledge  were  now  making 
their  appearance,  the  clergy  became  desirous  of  bring- 
ing out  a  religious  publication  of  a  popular  character, 
and  they  were  in  search  for  a  publisher.  Parker,  who 
was  well  known  at  Cambridge,  was  mentioned  to  the 


214  William  Clowes. 


Bishop  of  London  as  the  most  likely  person.  An  in- 
troduction took  place,  and  after  an  hour's  conversation 
with  Parker,  the  bishop  went  to  his  friends  and  said, 
"This  is  the  very  man  we  want."  An  offer  was  ac- 
cordingly made  to  him  to  undertake  the  publication 
of  the  Saturday  Magazine  and  the  other  publica- 
tions of  the  Christian  Knowledge  Society,  which  he 
accepted.  It  is  unnecessary  to  follow  his  fortunes. 
His  progress  was  steady  ;  he  eventually  became  the 
publisher  of  Frasefs  Magazine  and  of  the  works  of 
John  Stuart  Mill  and  other  well-known  writers.  Mill 
never  forgot  his  appreciation  and  generosity;  for  when 
his  "  System  of  Logic  "  had  been  refused  by  the  lead- 
ing London  publishers,  Parker  prized  the  book  at  its 
rightful  value  and  introduced  it  to  the  public. 

To  return  to  Mr.  Clowes.  In  the  course  of  a  few 
years,  the  original  humble  establishment  of  the  Sussex 
compositor,  beginning  with  one  press  and  one  assistant, 
grew  up  to  be  one  of  the  largest  printing-offices  in  the 
world.  It  had  twenty-five  steam  presses,  twenty-eight 
hand  presses,  six  hydraulic  presses,  and  gave  direct 
employment  to  over  five  hundred  persons,  and  indirect 
employment  to  probably  more  than  ten  times  that 
number.  Besides  the  works  connected  with  his  print- 
ing-office, Mr.  Clowes  found  it  necessary  to  cast  his 
own  types,  to  enable  him  to  command  on  emergency 
any  quantity  ;  and  to  this  he  afterwards  added  stereo- 
typing on  an  immense  scale.  He  possessed  the  power 
of  supplying  his  compositors  with  a  stream  of  new  type 
at  the  rate  of  about  fifty  thousand  pieces  a  day.  In 
this  way,  the  weight  of  type  in  ordinary  use  became 
very  great;  it  amounted  to  not  less  than  five  hundred 
tons,  and  the  stereotyped  plates  to  about  two  thousand 
five  hundred  tons — the  value  of  the  latter  being  not 
less  than  half  a  million  sterling. 

Mr.  Clowes  would  not  hesitate,  in  the  height  of  his 


Compos%7ig  Machines.  215 

career,  to  have  tons  of  type  locked  up  for  months  in 
some  ponderous  blue-book.  To  print  a  report  of  a 
hundred  folio  pages  in  the  course  of  a  day  or  during 
a  night,  or  of  a  thousand  pages  in  a  week,  was  no  un- 
common occurrence.  From  his  gigantic  establishment 
were  turned  out  not  fewer  than  seven  hundred  and 
twenty-five  thousand  printed  sheets,  or  equal  to  thirty 
thousand  volumes  a  week.  Nearly  forty-five  thousand 
pounds  of  paper  were  printed  weekly.  The  quantity 
printed  on  both  sides  per  week,  if  laid  down  in  a  path 
of  twenty -two  and  one  quarter  inches  broad,  would 
extend  one  hundred  and  sixty -three  miles  in  length. 

About  the  year  1840,  an  Italian  inventor  brought 
out  a  composing  machine,  and  submitted  it  to  Mr. 
Clowes  for  approval.  But  Mr.  Clowes  was  getting  too 
old  to  take  up  and  push  any  new  invention.  He  was 
also  averse  to  doing  anything  to  injure  the  composi- 
tors, having  once  been  a  member  of  the  craft.  At  the 
same  time  he  said  to  his  son  George,  "  If  you  find  this 
to  be  a  likely  machine  let  me  know.  Of  course  we 
must  go  with  the  age.  If  I  had  not  started  the  steam 
press  when  I  did,  where  should  we  have  been  now  ?" 
On  the  whole,  the  composing  machine,  though  ingen- 
ious, was  incomplete,  and  did  not  come  into  use  at  that 
time,  nor  indeed  for  a  long  time  after.  Still,  the  idea 
had  been  born,  and,  like  other  inventions,  became 
eventually  developed  into  a  useful  working  machine. 
Composing  machines  are  now  in  use  in  many  printing- 
offices,  and  the  present  Clowes'  firm  possesses  several 
of  them.  Those  in  The  Times  newspaper  office  are 
perhaps  the  most  perfect  of  all. 

Mr.  Clowes  was  necessarily  a  man  of  great  ability, 
industry,  and  energy.  Whatever  could  be  done  in 
printing,  that  he  would  do.  He  would  never  admit 
the  force  of  any  difficulty  that  might  be  suggested  to 
his  plans.     When  he  found  a  person  ready  to  offer  ob- 


216  William  Clowes. 


jections,  he  would  say,  "Ah !  I  see  you  are  a  difficulty- 
maker  :  you  will  never  do  for  me." 

Mr.  Clowes  died  in  1847,  at  the  age  of  sixty-eight. 
There  still  remain  a  few  who  can  recall  to  mind  the 
giant  figure,  the  kindly  countenance,  and  the  gentle 
bearing  of  this  "  Prince  of  Printers,"  as  he  was  styled 
by  the  members  of  his  craft.  His  life  was  full  of  hard 
and  useful  work ;  and  it  will  probably  be  admitted 
that,  as  the  greatest  multiplier  of  books  in  his  day, 
and  as  one  of  the  most  effective  practical  laborers  in 
the  diffusion  of  useful  knowledge,  his  name  is  entitled 
to  be  permanently  associated,  not  only  with  the  indus- 
trial, but  also  with  the  intellectual  development  of  our 
time. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

CHARLES  BIANCONI. 

A   LESSON    OF   SELF-HELP   IN  IKELAND. 

"I  beg  you  to  occupy  yourself  in  collecting  biographical  notices 
respecting  the  Italians  who  have  honestly  enriched  themselves  in 
other  regions,  particularly  referring  to  the  obstacles  of  their  previous 
life,  and  to  the  efforts  and  the  means  which  they  employed  for  van- 
quishing them,  as  well  as  to  the  advantages  which  they  secured  for 
themselves,  for  the  countries  in  which  they  settled,  and  for  the  country 
to  which  they  owed  their  birth. — General  Menabrea  :  Circular  to 
Italian  Consuls. 

When  Count  Menabrea  was  prime-minister  of  Italy, 
he  caused  a  despatch  to  be  prepared  and  issued  to 
Italian  consuls  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  inviting  them 
to  collect  and  forward  to  him  "biographical  notices 
respecting  the  Italians  who  have  honorably  advanced 
themselves  in  foreign  countries." 

His  object,  in  issuing  the  despatch,  was  to  collect 
information  as  to  the  lives  of  his  compatriots  living 
abroad,  in  order  to  bring  out  a  book  similar  to  "  Self- 
Help,"  the  examples  cited  in  which  were  to  be  drawn 
exclusively  from  the  lives  of  Italian  citizens.  Such  a 
work,  he  intimated,  "  if  it  were  once  circulated  among 
the  masses,  could  not  fail  to  excite  their  emulation  and 
encourage  them  to  follow  the  examples  therein  set 
forth,"  while  "  in  the  course  of  time  it  might  exercise 
a  powerful  influence  on  the  increased  greatness  of  our 
country." 

We  are  informed  by  Count  Menabrea  that,  although 
no  special  work  has  been  published  from  the  biograph- 

10 


218  Charles  Bianconi. 

ical  notices  collected  in  answer  to  his  despatch,  yet 
that  the  "  Volere  e  Potere"  ("Will  is  Power")  of  Pro- 
fessor Lessona,  issued  a  few  years  ago,  sufficiently 
answers  the  purpose  which  he  contemplated,  and  fur- 
nishes many  examples  of  the  patient  industry  and  un- 
tiring perseverance  of  Italians  in  all  parts  of  the  world. 
Many  important  illustrations  of  life  and  character  are 
necessarily  omitted  from  Professor  Lessona's  interest- 
ing work.  Among  these  may  be  mentioned  the  sub- 
ject of  the  following  pages — a  distinguished  Italian 
who  entirely  corresponds  to  Count  Menabrea's  descrip- 
tion— one  who,  in  the  face  of  the  greatest  difficulties, 
raised  himself  to  an  eminent  public  position,  at  the 
same  time  that  he  conferred  the  greatest  benefits  upon 
the  country  in  which  he  settled  and  carried  on  his  in- 
dustrial operations.  We  mean  Charles  Bianconi,  and 
his  establishment  of  the  great  system  of  car  commu- 
nication throughout  Ireland.* 

Charles  Bianconi  was  born  in  1786,  at  the  village  of 
Tregolo,  situated  in  the  Lombard  Highlands  of  La 
Brianza,  about  ten  miles  from  Como.  The  last  eleva- 
tions of  the  Alps  disappear  in  the  district ;  and  the 
great  plain  of  Lombardy  extends  towards  the  south. 
The  region  is  known  for  its  richness  and  beauty ;  the 
inhabitants  being  celebrated  for  the  cultivation  of  the 
mulberry  and  the  rearing  of  the  silk-worm,  the  finest 
silk  in  Lombardy  being  produced  in  the  neighborhood. 
Indeed,  Bianconi's  family,  like  most  of  the  villagers, 
maintained  themselves  by  the  silk  culture. 

Charles  had  three  brothers  and  one  sister.  When 
of  a  sufficient  age,  he  was  sent  to  school.     The  Abbe 

*  This  article  originally  appeared  in  "Good  Words."  A  biogra- 
phy of  Charles  Bianconi,  by  his  daughter,  Mrs.  Morgan  John  O'Con- 
nell,  has  since  been  published ;  but  the  above  article  is  thought  worthy 
of  republication,  as  its  contents  were  for  the  most  part  taken  princi- 
pally from  Mr.  Bianconi's  own  lips. 


Learns  Home  for  England.  219 

Radicali  had  turned  out  some  good  scholars ;  but  with 
Charles  Bianconi  his  failure  was  complete.  The  new 
pupil  proved  a  tremendous  dunce.  He  was  very  wild, 
very  bold,  and  very  plucky ;  but  he  learned  next  to 
nothing.  Learning  took  as  little  effect  upon  him  as 
pouring  water  upon  a  duck's  back.  Accordingly,  when 
he  left  school  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  he  was  almost  as 
ignorant  as  when  he  had  entered  it ;  and  a  great  deal 
more  wilful. 

Young  Bianconi  had  now  arrived  at  the  age  at  which 
he  was  expected  to  do  something  for  his  own  mainte- 
nance. His  father  wished  to  throw  him  upon  his  own 
resources;  and  as  he  would  soon  be  subject  to  the  con- 
scription, he  thought  of  sending  him  to  some  foreign 
country  in  order  to  avoid  the  forced  service.  Young 
fellows,  who  had  any  love  of  labor  or  promptings  of 
independence  in  them,  were  then  accustomed  to  leave 
home  and  carry  on  their  occupations  abroad.  It  was 
a  common  practice  for  workmen  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Como  to  emigrate  to  England  and  carry  on  various 
trades;  more  particularly  the  manufacture  and  sale  of 
barometers,  looking-glasses,  images,  prints,  pictures,  and 
other  articles. 

Accordingly,  Bianconi's  father  arranged  with  one 
Andrea  Faroni  to  take  the  young  man  to  England  and 
instruct  him  in  the  trade  of  print-selling.  Bianconi 
was  to  be  Faroni's  apprentice  for  eighteen  months; 
and  in  the  event  of  his  not  liking  the  occupation,  he 
was  to  be  placed  under  the  care  of  Colnaghi,  a  friend 
of  his  father's,  who  was  then  making  considerable 
progress  as  a  print-seller  in  London,  and  who  after- 
wards succeeded  in  achieving  a  considerable  fortune 
and  reputation. 

Bianconi  made  his  preparations  for  leaving  home. 
A  little  festive  entertainment  was  given  at  a  little  inn 
in  Como,  at  which  the  whole  family  were  present.     It 


220  Charles  Bianconi. 

was  a  sad  thin sr  for  Bianconi's  mother  to  take  leave  of 
her  boy,  wild  though  he  was.  On  the  occasion  of  this 
parting  ceremony,  she  fainted  outright,  at  which  the 
young  fellow  thought  that  things  were  assuming  a 
very  serious  aspect.  As  he  finally  left  the  family  home 
at  Tregolo,  the  last  words  his  mother  said  to  him  were 
these — words  which  he  never  forgot:  "When  you  re- 
member me,  think  of  me  as  waiting  at  this  window, 
watching  for  your  return." 

Besides  Charles  Bianconi,  Faroni  took  three  other 
boys  under  his  charge.  One  was  the  son  of  a  small 
village  innkeeper,  another  the  son  of  a  tailor,  and  the 
third  the  son  of  a  flax -dealer.  This  party,  under 
charge  of  the  padre,  ascended  the  Alps  by  the  Val  San 
Giacomo  road.  From  the  summit  of  the  pass  they  saw 
the  plains  of  Lombardy  stretching  away  in  the  blue  dis- 
tance. They  soon  crossed  the  Swiss  frontier,  and  then 
Bianconi  found  himself  finally  separated  from  home. 
He  now  felt  that,  without  further  help  from  friends  or 
relatives,  he  had  his  own  way  to  make  in  the  world. 

The  party  of  travellers  duly  reached  England;  but 
Faroni,  without  stopping  in  London  at  all,  took  them 
over  to  Ireland  at  once.  They  reached  Dublin  in  the 
summer  of  1802,  and  lodged  in  Temple  Bar,  near  Es- 
sex Bridge.  It  was  some  little  time  before  Faroni 
could  send  out  the  boys  to  sell  pictures.  First  he  had 
the  leaden  frames  to  cast ;  then  they  had  to  be  trimmed 
and  colored;  and  then  the  pictures — mostly  of  sacred 
subjects,  or  of  public  characters — had  to  be  mounted. 
The  flowers,  which  were  of  wax,  had  also  to  be  pre- 
pared and  finished,  ready  for  sale  to  the  passers-by. 

When  Bianconi  went  into  the  streets  of  Dublin  to 
sell  his  mounted  prints,  he  could  not  speak  a  word  of 
English.  He  could  only  say  "Buy, buy!"  Everybody 
spoke  to  him  an  unknown  tongue.  When  asked  the 
price,  he  could  only  indicate  by  his  fingers  the  number 


Travels  through  Ireland.  ,    221 

of  pence  he  wanted  for  his  goods.  At  length  he  learned 
a  little  English — at  least  sufficient  "for  the  road;"  and 
then  he  was  sent  into  the  country  to  sell  his  merchan- 
dise. He  was  despatched  every  Monday  morning  with 
about  forty  shillings'  worth  of  stock,  and  ordered  to 
return  home  on  Saturdays,  or  as  much  sooner  as  hje 
liked,  if  he  had  sold  all  the  pictures.  The  only  money 
his  master  allowed  him  at  starting  was  fourpence. 
When  Bianconi  remonstrated  at  the  smallness  of  the 
amount,  Faroni  answered,  "  While  you  have  goods  you 
have  money;  make  haste  to  sell  your  goods!" 

During  his  apprenticeship,  Bianconi  learned  much 
of  the  country  through  which  he  travelled.  He  was 
constantly  making  acquaintances  with  new  people,  and 
visiting  new  places.  At  Waterford  he  did  a  good 
trade  in  small  prints.  Besides  the  Scripture  pieces,  he 
sold  portraits  of  the  royal  family,  as  well  as  of  Bona- 
parte and  his  most  distinguished  generals.  "Bony" 
was  the  dread  of  all  magistrates,  especially  in  Ireland. 
At  Passage,  near  Waterford,  Bianconi  was  arrested 
for  having  sold  a  leaden-framed  picture  of  the  famous 
French  emperor.  He  was  thrown  into  a  cold  guard- 
room, and  spent  the  night  there  without  bed  or  fire 
or  food.  Next  morning  he  was  discharged  by  the 
magistrate,  but  cautioned  that  he  must  not  sell  any 
more  of  such  pictures. 

Many  things  struck  Bianconi  in  making  his  first 
journeys  through  Ireland.  He  was  astonished  at  the 
dram-drinking  of  the  men,' and  the  pipe-smoking  of 
the  women.  The  violent  faction  -  fights  which  took 
place  at  the  fairs  which  he  frequented  were  of  a  kind 
which  he  had  never  before  observed  among  the  pacific 
people  of  North  Italy.  These  faction-fights  were  the 
result,  partly  of  dram- drinking,  and  partly  of  the  fight- 
ing mania  which  then  prevailed  in  Ireland.  There 
were  also  numbers  of  crippled  and  deformed  beggars 


222  Charles  Bianconi. 

in  every  town — quarrelling  and  fighting  in  the  streets 
— rows  and  drinkings  at  wakes — gambling,  duelling, 
and  riotous  living  among  all  classes  of  the  people — ■ 
things  which  could  not  but  strike  any  ordinary  ob- 
server at  the  time,  but  which  have  now,  for  the  most 
part,  happily  passed  away. 

At  the  end  of  eighteen  months,  Bianconi's  appren- 
ticeship was  out;  and  Faroni  then  offered  to  take  him 
back  to  his  father,  in  compliance  with  the  original 
understanding.  But  Bianconi  had  no  wish  to  return 
to  Italy.  Faroni  then  made  over  to  him  the  money 
he  had  retained  on  his  account,  and  Bianconi  set  up 
business  for  himself.  He  was  now  about  eighteen 
years  old ;  he  was  strong  and  healthy,  and  able  to 
walk  with  a  heavy  load  on  his  back  from  twenty  to 
thirty  miles  a  day.  He  bought  a  large  case,  filled  it 
with  colored  prints  and  other  articles,  and  started 
from  Dublin  on  a  tour  through  the  south  of  Ireland. 
He  succeeded,  like  most  persons  who  labor  diligently. 
The  curly-haired  Italian  lad  became  a  general  favorite. 
He  took  his  native  politeness  with  him  everywhere; 
and  made  many  friends  among  his  various  customers 
throughout  the  country. 

Bianconi  used  to  say  that  it  was  about  this  time- 
when  he  was  carrying  his  heavy  case  upon  his  back, 
weighing  at  least  a  hundred  pounds  —  that  the  idea 
began  to  strike  him,  of  some  cheap  method  of  convey- 
ance being  established  for  the  accommodation  of  the 
poorer  classes  in  Ireland.  As  he  dismantled  himself 
of  his  case  of  pictures,  and  sat  wearied  and  resting  on 
the  milestones  along  the  road,  he  puzzled  his  mind  with 
the  thought,  "  Why  should  poor  people  walk  and  toil, 
and  rich  people  ride  and  take  their  ease  ?  Could  not 
some  method  be  devised  by  which  poor  people  also 
might  have  the  opportunity  of  travelling  comfort- 
ably ?" 


Settles  at  Carric7c-on-/Suir.  223 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  Bianconi  was  already  be- 
ginning to  think  about  the  matter.  When  asked,  not 
long  before  his  death,  how  it  was  that  he  had  first 
thought  of  starting  his  extensive  car  establishment,  he 
answered,  "  It  grew  out  of  my  baclc  /"  It  was  the  hun- 
dredweight of  pictures  on  his  dorsal  muscles  that  stim- 
ulated his  thinking  faculties.  But  the  time  for  start- 
ing his  great  experiment  had  not  yet  arrived. 

Bianconi  wandered  about  from  town  to  town  for 
nearly  two  years.  The  picture -case  became  heavier 
than  ever.  For  a  time  he  replaced  it  with  a  portfolio 
of  unframed  prints.  Then  he  became  tired  of  the 
wandering  life,  and  in  1806  settled  down  at  Carrick- 
on-Suir  as  a  print-seller  and  carver  and  gilder.  He 
supplied  himself  with  gold-leaf  from  Waterford,  to 
which  town  he  used  to  proceed  by  Tom  Morrissey's 
boat.  Although  the  distance  by  road  between  the 
towns  was  only  twelve  miles,  it  was  about  twenty-four 
by  water,  in  consequence  of  the  windings  of  the  river 
Suir.  Besides,  the  boat  could  only  go  when  the  state 
of  the  tide  permitted.  Time  was  of  little  consequence; 
and  it  often  took  half  a  day  to  make  the  journey.  In 
the  course  of  one  of  his  voyages,  Bianconi  got  himself 
so  thoroughly  soaked  by  rain  and  mud  that  he  caught 
a  severe  cold,  which  ran  into  pleurisy,  and  laid  him  up 
for  about  two  months.  He  was  carefully  attended  to 
by  a  good,  kind  physician,  Dr.  White,  who  would  not 
take  a  penny  for  his  medicine  and  nursing. 

Business  did  not  prove  very  prosperous  at  Carrick- 
on-Suir;  the  town  was  small,  and  the  trade  was  not 
very  brisk.  Accordingly,  Bianconi  resolved,  after  a 
year's  ineffectual  trial,  to  remove  to  Waterford,  a  more 
thriving  centre  of  operations.  He  was  now  twenty- 
one  years  old.  He  began  again  as  a  carver  and  gilder; 
and  as  business  flowed  in  upon  him,  he  worked  very 
hard,  sometimes  from  six  in  the  morning  until  two 


224  .       Charles  Bianconi. 

hours  after  midnight.  As  usual,  he  made  many  friends. 
Among  the  best  of  them  was  Edward  Rice,  the  founder 
of  the  "  Christian  Brothers  "  in  Ireland.  Edward  Rice 
was  a  true  benefactor  to  his  country.  He  devoted  him- 
self to  the  work  of  education,  long  before  the  National 
Schools  were  established;  investing  the  whole  of  his 
means  in  the  foundation  and  management  of  this  no- 
ble institution. 

Mr.  Rice's  advice  and  instruction  set  and  kept  Bian- 
coni in  the  right  road.  He  helped  the  young  foreign- 
er to  learn  English.  Bianconi  was  no  longer  a  dunce, 
as  he  had  been  at  school;  but  a  keen,  active,  enter- 
prising fellow,  eager  to  make  his  way  in  the  world. 
Mr.  Rice  encouraged  him  to  be  sedulous  and  indus- 
trious, urged  him  to  carefulness  and  sobriety,  and 
strengthened  his  religious  impressions.  The  hel})  and 
friendship  of  this  good  man,  operating  uj)on  the  mind 
and  soul  of  a  young  man,  whose  habits  of  conduct  and 
whose  moral  and  religious  character  were  only  in 
course  of  formation,  could  not  fail  to  exercise,  as  Bian- 
coni always  acknowledged  they  did,  a  most  powerful 
influence  upon  the  whole  of  his  after-life. 

Although  "  three  removes  "  are  said  to  be  "  as  bad 
as  a  fire,"  Bianconi,  after  remaining  about  two  years 
at  Waterford,  made  a  third  removal  in  1809,  to  Clon- 
mel,  in  the  county  of  Tipperary.  Clonmel  is  the  centre 
of  a  large  corn  trade,  and  is  in  water  communication, 
by  the  Suir,  with  Carrick  and  Waterford.  Bianconi* 
therefore,  merely  extended  his  connection  ;  and  still 
continued  his  dealings  with  his  customers  in  the  other 
towns.  He  made  himself  more  proficient  in  the  me- 
chanical part  of  his  business;  and  aimed  at  being  the 
first  carver  and  gilder  in  the  trade.  Besides,  he  had 
always  an  eye  open  for  new  business.  At  that  time, 
when  the  war  was  raging  with  France,  gold  was  at  a 
premium.     The  guinea  was  worth  about  twenty-six  or 


.Tickling  a  Horse.  225 

twenty-seven  shillings.  Bianconi  therefore  began  to 
buy  up  the  hoarded  guineas  of  the  peasantry.  The 
loyalists  became  alarmed  at  his  proceedings,  and  began 
to  circulate  the  report  that  Bianconi,  the  foreigner, 
was  buying  up  bullion  to  send  secretly  to  Bonaparte  ! 
The  country  people,  however,  parted  with  their  guineas 
readily;  for  they  had  no  particular  hatred  of  "Bony," 
but  rather  admired  him. 

Bianconi's  conduct  was  of  course  quite  loyal  in  the 
matter;  he  merely  bought  the  guineas  as  a  matter  of 
business,  and  sold  them  at  a  profit  to  the  bankers. 

The  country  people  had  a  difficulty  in  pronouncing 
his  name.  His  shop  was  at  the  corner  of  Johnson 
Street,  and  instead  of  Bianconi,  he  came  to  be  called 
"Bian  of  the  Corner."  He  was  afterwards  known  as 
"Bian."  ■ 

Bianconi  soon  became  well  known  after  his  business 
was  established.  He  became  a  proficient  in  the  carving 
and  gilding  line,  and  was  looked  upon  as  a  thriving 
man.  He  began  to  employ  assistants  in  his  trade,  and 
had  three  German  gilders  at  work.  While  they  were 
working  in  the  shop  he  would  travel  about  the  coun- 
try, taking  orders  and  delivering  goods  —  sometimes 
walking  and  sometimes  driving. 

He  still  retained  a  little  of  his  old  friskiness  and 
spirit  of  mischief.  He  was  once  driving  a  car  from 
Clonmel  to  Thurles;  he  had  with  him  a  large  looking- 
glass  with  a  gilt  frame,  on  which  about  a  fortnight's 
labor  had  been  bestowed.  In  a  fit  of  exuberant  hu- 
mor he  began  to  tickle  the  horse  under  his  tail  with  a 
straw  !  In  an  instant  the  animal  reared  and  plunged, 
and  then  set  off  at  a  gallop  down  hill.  The  result 
was,  that  the  car  was  dashed  to  bits  and  the  looking- 
glass  broken  into  a  thousand  atoms  ! 

On  another  occasion,  a  man  was  carrying  to  Cashel 
on  his  back  one  of  Bianconi's  large  looking  -  glasses? 

10* 


226  Charles  Bianconi. 

An  old  woman  by  the  wayside,  seeing  the  odd-looking, 
unwieldy  package,  asked  what  it  was;  on  which  Bian- 
coni,  who  was  close  behind  the  man  carrying  the  glass, 
answered  that  it  was  "the  Repeal  of  the  Union  !" 
The  old  woman's  delight  was  unbounded.  She  knelt 
down  on  her  knees  in  the  middle  of  the  road,  as  if  it 
had  been  a  picture  of  the  Madonna,  and  thanked  God 
for  having  preserved  her  in  her  old  age  to  see  the  Re- 
peal of  the  Union  ! 

But  this  little  waywardness  did  not  last  long.  Bi- 
anconi's  wild  oats  were  soon  all  sown.  He  was  care- 
ful and  frugal.  As  he  afterwards  used  to  say,  "  When 
I  was  earning  a  shilling  a  day  at  Clonmel,  I  lived  upon 
eightpence."  He  even  took  lodgers,  to  relieve  him  of 
the  charge  of  his  household  expenses.  But  as  his 
means  grew,  he  was  soon  able  to  have  a  conveyance 
of  his  own.  He  first  started  a  yellow  gig,  in  which  he 
drove  about  from  place  to  place,  and  was  everywhere 
treated  with  kindness  and  hospitality.  He  was  now 
regarded  as  "respectable,"  and  as  a  person  worthy  to 
hold  some  local  office.  He  was  elected  to  a  Society  for 
Visiting  the  Sick  Poor,  and  became  a  member  of  the 
House  of  Industry.  He  might  have  gone  on  in  the 
same  business,  winning  his  way  to  the  mayoralty  of 
Clonmel,  which  he  afterwards  held  ;  but  that  the  old 
idea,  which  had  first  sprung  up  in  his  mind  while  rest- 
ing wearily  on  the  milestones  along  the  road,  with  his 
heavy  case  of  pictures  by  his  side,  again  laid  hold  of 
him,  and  he  determined  now  to  try  whether  his  plan 
could  not  be  carried  into  effect. 

He  had  often  lamented  the  fatigue  that  poor  people 
had  to  undergo  in  travelling  with  burdens  from  place 
to  place  upon  foot,  and  wondered  whether  some  means 
might  not  be  devised  for  alleviating  their  sufferings. 
Other  people  would  have  suggested  "  the  govern- 
ment!"     Why  should  not  the  government  give  us 


Need  of  Conveyances.  227 

this,  that,  and  the  other — give  us  roads,  harbors,  car- 
riages, boats,  nets,  and  so  on.  This,  of  course,  would 
have  been  a  mistaken  idea  ;  for  where  people  are  too 
much  helped,  they  invariably  lose  the  beneficent  prac- 
tice of  helping  themselves.  Charles  Bianconi  had 
never  been  helped,  except  by  advice  and  friendship. 
He  had  helped  himself  throughout;  and  now  he  would 
try  to  help  others. 

The  facts  were  patent  to  everybody.  There  was  not 
an  Irishman  who  did  not  know  the  difficulty  of  getting 
from  one  town  to  another.  There  were  roads  between 
them,  but  no  conveyances.  There  was  an  abundance 
of  horses  in  the  country,  for  at  the  close  of  the  war  an 
unusual  number  of  horses,  bred  for  the  army,  were 
thrown  upon  the  market.  Then  a  tax  had  been  levied 
upon  carriages,  which  sent  a  large  number  of  jaunting- 
cars  out  of  employment. 

The  roads  of  Ireland  were  on  the  whole  good,  being 
at  that  time  quite  equal,  if  not  superior,  to  most  of 
those  in  England.  The  facts  of  the  abundant  horses, 
the  good  roads,  the  number  of  unemployed  outside 
cars,  were  generally  known  ;  but  until  Bianconi  took 
the  enterprise  in  hand,  there  was  no  person  of  thought, 
or  spirit,  or  capital  in  the  country,  who  put  these  three 
things  together — horses,  roads,  and  cars — and  dreamed 
of  remedying  a  great  public  inconvenience. 

It  was  left  for  our  young  Italian  carver  and  gilder, 
a  struggling  man  of  small  capital,  to  take  up  the  en- 
terprise, and  show  what  could  be  done  by  prudent  ac- 
tion and  persevering  energy.  Though  the  car  system 
originally  "  grew  out  of  his  back,"  Bianconi  had  long 
been  turning  the  subject  over  in  his  mind.  His  idea 
was,  that  we  should  never  despise  small  interests,  nor 
neglect  the  wants  of  poor  people.  He  saw  the  mail- 
coaches  supplying  the  requirements  of  the  rich,  and 
enabling  them  to  travel  rapidly  from  place  to  place. 


228  .    Charles  Bianconi. 

"  Then,"  said  he  to  himself,  "  would  it  not  be  possible 
for  me  to  make  an  ordinary  two-wheeled  car  pay,  by 
running  as  regularly  for  the  accommodation  of  poor 
districts  and  poor  people  ?" 

When  Mr.  Wallace,  chairman  of  the  Select  Commit- 
tee on  Postage,  in  1838,  asked  Mr.  Bianconi,  "What 
induced  you  to  commence  the  car  establishment  ?"  his 
answer  was,  "  I  did  so  from  what  I  saw,  after  coming 
to  this  country,  of  the  necessity  for  such  cars,  inas- 
much as  there  was  no  middle  mode  of  conveyance, 
nothing  to  fill  up  the  vacuum  that  existed  between 
those  who  were  obliged  to  walk  and  those  who  posted 
or  rode.  My  want  of  knowledge  of  the  language  gave 
me  plenty  of  time  for  deliberation,  and  in  proportion 
as  I  grew  up  with  the  knowledge  of  the  language  and 
the  localities,  this  vacuum  pressed  very  heavily  upon 
my  mind,  till  at  last  I  hit  upon  the  idea  of  running 
jaunting-cars,  and  for  that  purpose  I  commenced  run- 
ning one  between  Clonmel  and  Cahir."  * 

What  a  happy  thing  it  was  for  Bianconi  and  Ireland 
that  he  could  not  speak  with  facility — that  he  did  not 
know  the  language  or  the  manners  of  the  country  ! 
In  his  case  silence  was  "golden."  Had  he  been  able 
to  talk  like  the  people  about  him,  he  might  have  said 
much  and  done  little — attempted  nothing  and  conse- 
quently achieved  nothing.  He  might  have  got  up  a 
meeting  and  petitioned  Parliament  to  provide  the  cars, 
and  subvention  the  car  system;  or  he  might  have  gone 
among  his  personal  friends,  asked  them  to  help  him, 
and  failing  their  help,  given  up  his  idea  in  despair,  and 
sat  down  grumbling  at  the  people  and  the  govern- 
ment. 

But  instead  of  talking,  he  proceeded  to  doing,  there- 

*  "Minutes  of  Evidence  taken  before  the  Select  Committee  on 
Postage  "  (Second  Report),  1838,  p.  284.  


The  First  Venture.  229 

by  illustrating  Lessona's  maxim  of  Vblere  e  potere. 
After  thinking  the  subject  fully  over,  he  trusted  to 
self-help.  He  found  that  with  his  own  means,  care- 
fully saved,  he  could  make  a  beginning  ;  and  the  be- 
ginning once  made,  included  the  successful  ending. 

The  beginning,  it  is  true,  was  very  small.  It  was 
Only  an  ordinary  jaunting-car,  drawn  by  a  single  horse, 
capable  of  accommodating  six  persons.  The  first  car 
ran  between  Clonmel  and  Cahir,  a  distance  of  about 
twelve  miles,  on  the  5th  of  July,  1815 — a  memorable 
day  for  Bianconi  and  Ireland.  Up  to  that  time  the 
public  accommodation  for  passengers  was  confined  to 
a  few  mail  and  day  coaches  on  the  great  lines  of  road, 
the  fares  by  which  were  very  high,  and  quite  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  poorer  or  middle-class  people. 

People  did  not  know  what  to  make  of  Bianconi's  car 
when  it  first  started.  There  were,  of  course,  the  usual 
prophets  of  disaster,  who  decided  that  it  "  would  never 
do."  Many  thought  that  no  one  would  pay  eighteen- 
pence  for  going  to  Cahir  by  car  when  they  could  walk 
there  for  nothing?  There  were  others  who  thought 
that  Bianconi  should  have  stuck  to  his  shop,  as  there 
was  no  connection  whatever  between  picture-gilding 
and  car-driving  ! 

The  truth  is,  the  enterprise  at  first  threatened  to  be 
a  failure  !  Scarcely  anybody  would  go  by  the  car. 
People  preferred  trudging  on  foot,  and  saved  their 
money,  which  was  more  valuable  to  them  than  time* 
The  car  sometimes  ran  for  weeks  without  a  passenger. 
Another  man  would  have  given  up  the  enterprise  in 
despair.  But  this  was  not  the  way  with  Bianconi. 
He  was  a  man  of  tenacity  and  perseverance.  What 
should  he  do  but  start  an  opposition  ear?  Nobody 
knew  of  it  but  himself  ;  not  even  the  driver  of  that 
opposition  car.  However,  the  rival  car  was  started. 
The  races  between  the  car-drivers,  the  free  lifts  occa- 


230  Charles  Bianconi. 

sionally  given  to  passengers,  the  cheapness  of  the  fare, 
and  the  excitement  of  the  contest,  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  the  public.  The  people  took  sides,  and  before 
long  both  cars  came  in  full.  Fortunately  the  "great 
big  yallah  horse  "  of  the  opposition  car  broke  down, 
and  Bianconi  had  all  the  trade  to  himself. 

The  people  became  accustomed  to  travelling.  They 
might  still  walk  to  Cahir;  but  going  by  car  saved  their 
legs,  saved  their  brains,  and  saved  their  time.  They 
might  go  to  Cahir  market,  do  their  business  there,  and 
be  comfortably  back  within  the  day.  Bianconi  then 
thought  of  extending  the  car  to  Tipperary  and  Limer- 
ick. In  the  course  of  the  same  year,  1815,  he  started 
another  car  between  Clonmel,  Cashel,  and  Thurles. 
Thus  all  the  principal  towns  of  Tipperary  were,  in  the 
first  year  of  the  undertaking,  connected  together  by 
car,  besides  being  also  connected  with  Limerick. 

It  was  easy  to  understand  the  convenience  of  the 
car  system  to  business  men,  farmers,  and  even  peas- 
ants. Before  their  establishment,  it  took  a  man  a 
wThole  day  to  walk  from  Thurles  to  Clonmel,  the  sec- 
ond day  to  do  his  business,  and  the  third  to  walk  back 
again;  wThereas  he  could,  in  one  day,  travel  backwards 
and  forwards  between  the  two  towns,  and  have  five  or 
six  intermediate  hours  for  the  purpose  of  doing  his 
business.     Thus  two  clear  days  could  be  saved. 

Still  carrying  out  his  scheme,  Bianconi,  in  the  fol- 
lowing year  (1816)  put  on  a  car  from  Clonmel  to  Wa- 
terford.  Before  that  time  there  was  no  car  accom- 
modation between  Clonmel  and  Carrick-on-Suir,  about 
half-way  to  "Waterford  ;  but  there  was  an  accommo- 
dation by  boat  between  Carrick  and  Waterford.  The 
distance  between  the  two  latter  places  was,  by  road, 
twelve  miles,  and  by  the  river  Suir  twenty-four  miles. 
Tom  Morrissey's  boat  plied  two  days  a  week ;  it  car- 
ried from  eight  to  ten  passengers  at  6%d,  of  the  then 


The  Car  Shop.  231 


currency;  it  did  the  voyage  in  from  four  to  five  hours, 
and  besides  had  to  wait  for  the  tide  to  float  it  up  and 
down  the  river.  When  Bianconi's  car  was  put  on,  it 
did  the  distance  daily  and  regularly  in  two  hours,  at  a 
fare  of  25. 

The  people  soon  got  accustomed  to  the  convenience 
of  the  cars.  They  also  learned  from  them  the  uses  of 
punctuality  and  the  value  of  time.  They  liked  the 
open-air  travelling  and  the  sidelong  motion.  The 
new  cars  were  also  safe  and  well-appointed.  They 
were  drawn  by  good  horses  and  driven  by  good  coach- 
men. Jaunting-car  travelling  had  before  been  rather 
unsafe.  The  country  cars  were  of  a  ramshackle  order, 
and  the  drivers  were  often  reckless.  "  Will  I  pay  the 
pike,  or  drive  at  it,  plaise  your  honor  ?"  said  a  driver 
to  his  passenger  on  approaching  a  turnpike-gate.  Sam 
Lover  used  to  tell  a  story  of  a  car-driver,  who,  after 
driving  his  passenger  up-hill  and  down-hill,  along  a  very 
bad  road,  asked  him  for  something  extra  at  the  end  of 
his  journey.  "Faith,"  said  the  driver,  "it's  not  put- 
ting me  off  with  this  ye'd  be,  if  ye  knew  but  all." 
The  gentleman  gave  him  another  shilling.  "  And  now 
what  do  you  mean  by  saying,  *  if  ye  knew  but  all  ?' " 
"  That  I  druv  yer  honor  the  last  three  miles  widout  a 
lynch-pin  /" 

Bianconi,  to  make  sure  of  the  soundness  and  safety 
of  his  cars,  set  up  a  workshop  to  build  them  for  him- 
self. He  could  thus  depend  upon  their  soundness, 
down  even  to  the  lynch-pin  itself.  He  kept  on  his 
carving  and  gilding  shop  until  his  car  business  had  in- 
creased so  much  that  it  required  the  whole  of  his  time 
and  attention;  and  then  he  gave  it  up.  In  fact,  when 
he  was  able  to  run  a  car  from  Clonmel  to  Waterford 
— a  distance  of  thirty-two  miles — at  a  fare  of  three- 
and-eixpence,  his  eventual  triumph  was  secure. 

He  made  Waterford  one  of  the  centres  of  his  opera- 


232  Charles  Bianconi. 

tions,  as  he  had  already  made  Clonmel.  In  1818  he 
established  a  car  between  Waterford  and  Ross,  in  the 
following  year  a  car  between  Waterford  and  Wexford, 
and  another  between  Waterford  and  Enniscorthy.  A 
few  years  later  he  established  other  cars  between  Wa- 
terford and  Kilkenny,  and  Waterford  and  Dungarvan. 
From  these  farthest  points,  again,  other  cars  were  es- 
tablished in  communication  with  them,  carrying  the 
line  farther  north,  east,  and  west.  So  much  had  the 
travelling  between  Clonmel  and  Waterford  increased, 
that  in  a  few  years  (instead  of  the  eight  or  ten  passen- 
gers conveyed  by  Tom  Morrissey's  boat  on  the  Suir) 
there  was  horse  and  car  power  capable  of  conveying  a 
hundred  passengers  daily  between  the  two  places. 

Bianconi  did  a  great  stroke  of  business  at  the  Wa- 
terford election  of  1826.  Indeed,  it  was  the  turning- 
point  of  his  fortunes.  He  was  at  first  greatly  cramped 
for  capital.  The  expense  of  maintaining  and  increas- 
ing his  stock  of  cars,  and  of  foddering  his  horses  was 
very  great ;  and  he  was  always  on  the  lookout  for 
more  capital.  When  the  Waterford  election  took 
place,  the  Beresford  party,  then  all-powerful,  engaged 
all  his  cars  to  drive  the  electors  to  the  poll.  The  pop- 
ular party,  however,  started  a  candidate,  and  applied 
to  Bianconi  for  help.  But  he  could  not  comply,  for 
his  cars  were  all  engaged.  The  morning  after  this  ap- 
plication was  refused,  Bianconi  was  pelted  with  mud. 
One  or  two  of  his  cars  and  horses  were  heaved  over 
the  bridge. 

Bianconi  then  wrote  to  Beresford's  agent,  stating 
that  he  could  no  longer  risk  the  lives  of  his  drivers 
and  his  horses,  and  desiring  to  be  released  from  his  en- 
gagement. The  Beresford  party  had  no  desire  to  en- 
danger the  lives  of  the  car-drivers  or  their  horses,  and 
they  set  Bianconi  free.  He  then  engaged  with  the 
popular  party,  and  enabled  them  to  win  the  election. 


His  Marriage.  233 


For  this  he  was  paid  the  sum  of  a  thousand  pounds. 
This  access  of  capital  was  greatly  helpful  to  him 
under  the  circumstances.  He  was  able  to  command 
the  market,  both  for  horses  and  fodder.  He  was 
also  placed  in  a  position  to  extend  the  area  of  his  car 
routes. 

He  now  found  time,  amid  his  numerous  vocations, 
to  get  married.  He  was  forty  years  of  age  before  this 
event  occurred.  He  married  Eliza  Hayes,  some  twenty 
years  younger  than  himself,  the  daughter  of  Patrick 
Hayes,  of  Dublin,  and  of  Henrietta  Burton,  an  English- 
woman. The  marriage  was  celebrated  on  the  14th  of 
February,  1827,  and  the  ceremony  was  performed  by 
the  late  Archbishop  Murray.  Mr.  Bianconi  must  now 
have  been  [in  good  circumstances,  as  he  settled  two 
thousand  pounds  upon  his  wife  on  their  marriage-day. 
His  early  married  life  was  divided  between  his  cars, 
electioneering,  and  Repeal  agitation  —  for  he  was  al- 
ways a  great  ally  of  O'Connell.  Though  he  joined  in 
the  Repeal  movement,  his  sympathies  were  not  with 
it;  for  he  preferred  Imperial  to  Home  Rule.  But  he 
could  never  deny  himself  the  pleasure  of  following 
O'Connell,  "  right  or  wrong." 

Let  us  give  a  picture  of  Bianconi  now.  The  curly- 
haired  Italian  boy  had  grown  a  handsome  man.  His 
black  locks  curled  all  over  his  head,  like  those  of  an 
ancient  Roman  statue.  His  face  was  full  of  power, 
his  chin  was  firm,  his  nose  was  finely  cut  and  well- 
formed;  his  eyes  were  keen  and  sparkling,  as  if  throw- 
ing out  a  challenge  to  fortune.  He  was  active,  ener- 
getic, healthy,  and  strong,  spending  his  time  mostly  in 
the  open  air.  He  had  a  wonderful  recollection  of  faces, 
and  rarely  forgot  to  recognize  the  countenance  that  he 
had  once  seen.  He  even  knew  all  his  horses  by  name. 
He  spent  little  of  his  time  at  home,  but  was  con- 
stantly rushing  about  the  country  after  business,  ex? 


234  Charles  JBianconi. 

tending  his  connections,  organizing  his  staff,  and  ar- 
ranging the  centres  of  his  traffic. 

To  return  to  the  car  arrangements.  A  line  was  early- 
opened  from  Clonmel — which  was  at  first  the  centre  of 
the  entire  connection — to  Cork;  and  that  line  was  ex- 
tended northward,  through  Mallow  and  Limerick. 
Then  the  Limerick  car  went  on  to  Tralee,  and  from 
thence  to  Cahirciveen,  on  the  southwest  coast  of  Ire- 
land. The  cars  were  also  extended  northward  from 
Thurles  to  Roscrea,  Ballinasloe,  Athlone,  Roscommon, 
and  Sligo,  and  to  all  the  principal  towns  in  the  north- 
west counties  of  Ireland. 

The  cars  interlaced  with  each  other,  and  plied,  not 
so  much  in  continuous  main  lines,  as  across  country, 
so  as  to  bring  all  important  towns,  but  especially  the 
market-towns,  into  regular  daily  communication  with 
each  other.  Thus,  in  the  course  of  about  thirty  years, 
Bianconi  succeeded  in  establishing  a  system  of  internal 
communication  in  Ireland,  which  traversed  the  main 
highways  and  cross-roads  from  town  to  town,  and  gave 
the  public  a  regular  and  safe  car  accommodation  at 
the  average  rate  of  a  penny-farthing  per  mile. 

The  traffic  in  all  directions  steadily  increased.  The 
first  car  used  was  capable  of  accommodating  only  six 
persons.  This  was  between  Clonmel  and  Cahir.  But 
when  it  went  on  to  Limerick,  a  larger  car  was  required. 
The  traffic  between  Clonmel  and  Waterford  was  also 
begun  with  a  small-sized  car.  But  in  the  course  of  a 
few  years  there  were  four  large-sized  cars,  travelling 
daily  each  way,  between  the  two  places.  And  so  it 
was  in  other  directions,  between  Cork  in  the  south, 
and  Sligo  and  Strabane  in  the  north  and  northwest, 
between  Wexford  in  the  east,  and  Galway  and  Skib- 
bereen  in  the  west  and  southwest. 

Bianconi  first  increased  the  accommodation  of  these 
cars  so  as  to  carry  four  persons  on  each  side  instead 


Names  of  the  Cars.  235 

of  three,  drawn  by  two  horses.  But  as  the  two  horses 
could  quite  as  easily  carry  two  additional  passengers, 
another  piece  was  added  to  the  car  so  as  to  carry  five 
jDassengers  on  each  side.  Then  another  four-wheeled 
car  was  built,  drawn  by  three  horses,  so  as  to  carry  six 
passengers  on  each  side.  And  lastly,  a  fourth  horse 
was  used,  and  the  car  was  further  enlarged,  so  as  to 
accommodate  seven,  and  eventually  eight  passengers 
on  each  side,  with  one  on  the  box,  which  made  a  total 
accommodation  for  seventeen  passengers.  The  largest 
and  heaviest  of  the  long  cars,  on  four  wheels,  was 
called  "  Finn  MacCoul,"  after  Ossian's  Giant ;  the 
fast  cars,  of  a  light  build,  on  two  wheels,  were  called 
" Faugh-a-ballagh,"  or  "clear  the  way;"  while  the  in- 
termediate cars  were  named  "Massey  Dawsons,"  after 
a  popular  Tory  squire. 

When  Bianconi's  system  was  complete,  he  had  about 
a  hundred  vehicles  at  work;  a  hundred  and  forty  sta- 
tions for  changing  horses,  where  from  one  to  eight 
grooms  were  employed;  about  a  hundred  drivers,  thir- 
teen hundred  horses,  performing  an  average  distance 
of  three  thousand  eight  hundred  miles  daily;  passing 
through  twenty-three  counties,  and  visiting  no  fewer 
than  a  hundred  and  twenty  of  the  princi]3al  towns  and 
cities  in  the  south  and  west  and  midland  counties  of 
Ireland.  Bianconi's  horses  consumed  on  an  average 
from  three  to  four  thousand  tons  of  hay  yearly,  and 
from  thirty  to  forty  thousand  barrels  of  oats,  all  of 
which  were  purchased  in  the  respective  localities  in 
which  they  were  grown. 

Bianconi's  cars — or  "  The  Bians  " — soon  became  very 
popular.  Everybody  was  under  obligations  to  them. 
They  greatly  promoted  the  improvement  of  the  coun- 
try. People  could  go  to  market  and  buy  or  sell  their 
goods  more  advantageously.  It  was  cheaper  for  them 
to  ride  than  to  walk.     They  brought  the  whole  people 


236  Charles  Bianconi. 

of  the  country  so  much  nearer  to  each  other.  They 
virtually  opened  up  about  seven  tenths  of  Ireland  to 
civilization  and  commerce,  and  among  their  other  ad- 
vantages, they  opened  markets  for  the  fresh  fish  caught 
by  the  fishermen  of  Galway,  Clifden,  Westport,  and 
other  places,  enabling  them  to  be  sold  throughout  the 
country  on  the  day  after  they  were  caught.  They 
also  opened  the  magnificent  scenery  of  Ireland  to  tour- 
ists, and  enabled  them  to  visit  Bantry  Bay,  Killarney, 
South  Donegal,  and  the  wilds  of  Connemara  in  safety, 
all  the  year  round. 

Bianconi's  service  to  the  public  was  so  great,  and  it 
was  done  with  so  much  tact,  that  nobody  had  a  word 
to  say  against  him.  Everybody  was  his  friend.  Not 
even  the  Whiteboys  would  injure  him  or  the  mails  he 
carried.  He  could  say  with  pride,  that  in  the  most  dis- 
turbed times  his  cars  had  never  been  molested.  Even 
during  the  Whiteboy  insurrection,  though  hundreds  of 
people  were  on  the  roads  at  night,  the  traffic  went  on 
without  interference.  At  the  meeting  of  the  British 
Association  in  1857,  Bianconi  said  :  "My  conveyances, 
many  of  them  carrying  very  important  mails,  have 
been  travelling  during  all  hours  of  the  day  and  night, 
often  in  lonely  and  unfrequented  places  ;  and  during 
the  long  period  of  forty-two  years  that  my  establish- 
ment has  been  in  existence,  the  slightest  injury  has 
never  been  done  by  the  people  to  my  property,  or  that 
intrusted  to  my  care  ;  and  this  fact  gives  me  greater 
pleasure  than  any  pride  I  might  feel  in  reflecting  upon 
the  other  rewards  of  my  life's  labor." 

Of  course  Bianconi's  cars  were  found  of  great  use 
for  carrying  the  mails.  The  post  was,  at  the^  begin- 
ning of  his  enterprise,  very  badly  served  in  Ireland, 
chiefly  by  foot  and  horse  posts.  When  the  first  car 
was  run  from  Clonmel  to  Cahir,  Bianconi  offered  to 
carry  the  mail  for  half  the  price  then  paid  for  "send- 


Bianconi  and  the  Post-office.  237 

ing  it  alternately  by  a  mule  and  a  bad  horse."  The 
post  was  afterwards  found  to  come  regularly  instead 
of  irregularly  to  Cahir  ;  and  the  practice  of  sending 
the  mails  by  Bianconi's  cars  increased  from  year  to 
year.  Despatch  won  its  way  to  popularity  in  Ireland 
as  elsewhere,  and  Bianconi  lived  to  see  all  the  cross- 
posts  in  Ireland  arranged  on  his  system. 

The  postage  authorities  frequently  used  the  cars  of 
Bianconi  as  a  means  of  competing  with  the  few  exist- 
ing mail-coaches.  For  instance,  they  asked  him  to 
compete  for  carrying  the  post  between  Limerick  and 
Tralee,  then  carried  by  a  mail-coach.  Before  tender- 
ing, Bianconi  called  on  the  contractor,  to  induce  him 
to  give  in  to  the  requirements  of  the  post-office,  be- 
cause he  knew  that  the  postal  authorities  only  desired 
to  make  use  of  him  to  fight  the  coach  proprietors. 
But  having  been  informed  that  it  was  the  intention 
of  the  post  -  office  to  discontinue  the  mail  -  coach 
whether  Bianconi  took  the  contract  or  not,  he  at 
length  sent  in  his  tender,  and  obtained  the  contract. 

He  succeeded  in  performing  the  service,  and  deliv- 
ered the  mail  much  earlier  than  it  had  been  done  be- 
fore. But  the  former  contractor,  hnding  that  he  had 
made  a  mistake,  got  up  a  movement  in  favor  of  re-es- 
tablishing the  mail-coach  upon  that  line  of  road;  and 
he  eventually  induced  the  postage  authorities  to  take 
the  mail  contract  out  of  the  hands  of  Bianconi,  and 
give  it  back  to  himself,  as  formerly.  Bianconi,  how- 
ever, continued  to  keep  his  cars  upon  the  road.  He 
had  before  stated  to  the  contractor  that,  if  he  once 
started  his  cars,  he  would  not  leave  it,  even  though 
the  contract  were  taken  from  him.  Both  coach  and 
car,  therefore,  ran  for  years  upon  the  road,  each  los- 
ing thousands  of  pounds.  "  But,"  said  Bianconi,  when 
asked  about  the  matter  by  the  Committee  on  Postage, 
in  1838,  "I  kept  my  word;  I  must  either  lose  charac- 


238  Charles  Bianconi. 

ter  by  breaking  my  word,  or  lose  money.  I  prefer 
losing  money  to  giving  up  the  line  of  road." 

Bianconi  had,  also,  other  competitors  to  contend 
with,  especially  from  coach  and  car  proprietors.  No 
sooner  had  he  shown  to  others  the  way  to  fortune  than 
he  had  plenty  of  imitators.  But  they  did  not  possess 
his  rare  genius  for  organization,  nor  perhaps  his  still 
rarer  principles.  They  had  not  his  tact,  his  foresight, 
his  knowledge,  nor  his  perseverance.  When  Bianconi 
was  asked  by  the  Select  Committee  on  Postage,  "Do 
the  opposition  cars  started  against  you  induce  you  to 
reduce  your  fares?"  his  answer  was,  "No;  I  seldom 
do.  Our  fares  are  so  close  to  the  first  cost  that,  if  any 
man  runs  cheaper  than  I  do,  he  must  starve  off,  as  few 
can  serve  the  public  lower  and  better  than  I  do."  * 

Bianconi  was  once  present  at  a  meeting  of  car  pro- 
prietors, called  for  the  purpose  of  uniting  to  put  down 
a  new  opposition  coach.  Bianconi  would  not  concur, 
but  protested  against  it,  saying,  "If  car  proprietors  had 
united  against  me  when  I  started,  I  should  have  been 
crushed.  But  is  not  the  country  big  enough  for  us  all  ?" 
The  coach  proprietors,  after  many  angry  words,  threat- 
ened to  unite  in  running  down  Bianconi  himself.  "  Very 
well,"  he  said,  "you  may  run  me  off  the  road — that  is 
possible;  but  while  there  is  this"  (pulling  a  flower  out 
of  his  coat)  "you  will  not  put  me  down."  The  threat 
merely  ended  in  smoke,  the  courage  and  perseverance 
of  Bianconi  having  long  since  become  generally  recog- 
nized. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  principles  of  Mr.  Bianconi. 
They  were  most  honorable.  His  establishment  might 
be  spoken  of  as  a  school  of  morality.  In  the  first  place, 
he  practically  taught  and  enforced  the  virtues  of  punc- 
tuality, truthfulness,  sobriety,  and  honesty.     He  also 

*  Evidence  before  the  Select  Committee  on  Postage,  1838. 


Promotion  by  Merit,  239 

taught  the  public  generally  the  value  of  time,  to  which, 
in  fact,  his  own  success  was  in  a  great  measure  due. 
While  passing  through  Clonmel,  in  1840,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
S.  C.  Hall  called  upon  Bianconi,  and  went  over  his  es- 
tablishment, as  well  as  over  his  house  and  farm,  a  short 
distance  from  the  town.  The  travellers  had  a  very 
pressing  engagement,  and  could  not  stay  to  hear  the 
story  of  how  their  entertainer  had  contrived  to  "  make 
so  much  out  of  so  little."  "  How  much  time  have 
you?"  he  asked.  "Just  five  minutes."  "The  car," 
says  Mr.  Hall,  "had  conveyed  us  to  the  back  entrance. 
Bianconi  instantly  rang  the  bell,  and  said  to  the  ser- 
vant, c  Tell  the  driver  to  bring  the  car  round  to  the 
front,' "  adding,  "  that  icill  save  one  minute,  and  ena- 
ble me  to  tell  you  all  within  the  time."  This  was,  in 
truth,  the  secret  of  his  success,  making  the  most  of 
time."* 

But  the  success  of  Bianconi  was  also  due  to  the  ad- 
mirable principles  on  which  his  establishment  was  con- 
ducted. His  drivers  were  noted  as  being  among  the 
most  civil  and  obliging  men  in  Ireland,  besides  being 
pleasant  companions  to  boot.  They  were  careful, 
punctual,  truthful,  and  honest;  but  all  this  was  the 
result  of  strict  discipline  on  the  part  of  their  master. 

The  drivers  were  taken  from  the  lowest  grades  of 
the  establishment,  and  promoted  to  higher  positions 
according  to  their  respective  merits,  as  opportunity 
offered.  "Much  surprise,"  says  Bianconi,  "has  often 
been  expressed  at  the  high  order  of  men  connected 
with  my  car  establishment,  and  at  its  popularity;  but 
parties  thus  expressing  themselves  forget  to  look  at 
Irish  society  with  sufficient  grasp.  For  my  part,  I 
cannot  better  compare  it  than  to  a  man  merging  to 
convalescence  from  a  serious  attack  of  malignant  fe- 

*  Hall's  "  Ireland,"  vol.  ii.  p.  76. 


240  Charles  Bianconi. 

ver,  and  requiring  generous  nutrition  in  place  of  med- 
ical treatment."  * 

To  attach  the  men  to  the  system,  as  well  as  to  confer 
upon  them  the  due  reward  for  their  labor,  he  provided 
for  all  the  workmen  who  had  been  injured,  worn  out, 
or  become  superannuated  in  his  service.  The  drivers 
could  then  retire  upon  a  full  pension,  which  they  en- 
joyed during  the  rest  of  their  lives.  They  were  also 
paid  their  full  wages  during  sickness,  and  at  their 
death  Bianconi  educated  their  children,  who  grew  up 
to  manhood,  and  afterwards  filled  the  situations  held 
by  their  deceased  parents. 

Every  workman  had  thus  a  special  interest  in  his 
own  good  conduct.  They  knew  that  nothing  but  mis- 
behavior could  deprive  them  of  the  benefits  they  en- 
joyed; and  hence  their  endeavors  to  maintain  their 
positions  by  observing  the  strict  discipline  enjoined 
by  their  employer. 

Sobriety  was,  of  course,  indispensable ;  a  drunken 
car-driver  being  among  the  most  dangerous  of  ser- 
vants. The  drivers  must  also  be  truthful,  and  the  man 
found  telling  a  lie,  however  venial,  was  instantly  dis- 
missed. Honesty  was  also  strongly  enforced,  not  only 
for  the  sake  of  the  public,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  men 
themselves.  Hence  he  never  allowed  his  men  to  carry 
letters.  If  they  did  so,  he  fined  them  in  the  first  in- 
stance very  severely,  and  in  the  second  instance  dis- 
missed them.  "  I  do  so,"  he  said,  "  because;  if  I  do  not 
respect  other  institutions  (the  post-office),  my  men  will 
soon  learn  not  to  respect  my  own.  Then,  for  carry- 
ing letters  during  the  extent  of  their  trip,  the  men 
most  probably  would  not  get  money,  but  drink,  and 
hence  become  dissipated  and  unworthy  of  confidence." 

Thus  truth,  accuracy,  punctuality,  sobriety,  and  hon- 

t  Paper  read  before  the  British  Association  at  Cork,  1843. 


Sunday  Traffic.  241 


esty,  being  strictly  enforced,  formed  the  fundamen- 
tal principle  of  the  entire  management.  At  the  same 
time,  Bianconi  treated  his  drivers  with  every  confi- 
dence and  respect.  He  made  them  feel  that,  in  doing 
their  work  well,  they  conferred  a  greater  benefit  on 
him  and  on  the  public  than  he  did  on  them  by  paying 
them  their  wages. 

When  attending  the  British  Association,  at  Cork, 
Bianconi  said  that,  "in  proportion  as  he  advanced  his 
drivers,  he  lowered  their  wages."  "Then,"  said  Dr. 
Taylor,  the  secretary,  "  I  wouldn't  like  to  serve  you." 
"  Yes,  you  would,"  replied  Bianconi,  "  because,  in  pro- 
moting my  drivers,  I  place  them  on  a  more  lucrative 
line,  where  their  certainty  of  receiving  fees  from  pas- 
sengers is  greater." 

Bianconi  was  as  merciful  to  his  horses  as  to  his  men. 
He  had  much  greater  difficulty  at  first  in  finding  good 
men  than  good  horses,  because  the  latter  were  not  ex- 
posed to  the  temptations  to  which  the  former  were 
subject.  Although  the  price  of  horses  continued  to 
rise,  he  nevertheless  bought  the  best  horses  at  in- 
creased prices,  and  he  took  care  not  to  work  them 
overmuch.  He  gave  his  horses,  as  well  as  his  men, 
their  seventh  day's  rest.  "I  find  by  experience,"  he 
said,  "that  I  can  work  a  horse  eight  miles  a  day  for 
six  days  in  the  week  easier  than  I  can  work  six  miles 
for  seven  days;  and  that  is  one  of  my  reasons  for  hav- 
ing no  cars,  unless  carrying  a  mail,  plying  upon  Sun- 
days." 

Bianconi  had  confidence  in  men  generally.  The 
result  was  that  men  had  confidence  in  him.  Even  the 
Whiteboys  respected  him.  At  the  close  of  a  long  and 
useful  life  he  could  say  with  truth,  "  I  never  yet  at- 
tempted to  do  an  act  of  generosity  or  common  justice, 
publicly  or  privately,  that  I  was  not  met  by  manifold 
reciprocity." 

11 


24:2  Charles  Bianconi. 

By  bringing  the  various  classes  of  society  into  con- 
nection with  each  other,  Bianconi  believed,  and  doubt- 
less with  truth,  that  he  was  the  means  of  making  them 
respect  each  other,  and  that  he  thereby  promoted  the 
civilization  of  Ireland.  At  the  meeting  of  the  Social 
Science  Congress,  held  at  Dublin,  in  1861,  he  said: 
"  The  state  of  the  roads  was  such  as  to  limit  the  rate 
of  travelling  to  about  seven  miles  an  hour,  and  the 
passengers  were  often  obliged  to  walk  up  hills.  Thus 
all  classes  were  brought  together,  and  I  have  felt  much 
pleasure  in  believing  that  the  intercourse  thus  created 
tended  to  inspire  the  higher  classes  with  respect  and 
regard  for  the  natural  good  qualities  of  the  humbler 
people,  which  the  latter  reciprocated  by  a  becoming 
deference  and  an  anxiety  to  please  and  oblige.  Such 
a  moral  benefit  appears  to  me  to  be  worthy  of  special 
notice  and  congratulation." 

Even  when  railways  were  introduced,  Bianconi  did 
not  resist  them,  but  welcomed  them  as  "  the  great  civ- 
ilizers  of  the  age."  There  was,  in  his  opinion,  room 
enough  for  all  methods  of  conveyance  in  Ireland. 
When  Captain  Thomas  Drummond  was  appointed 
Under-secretary  for  Ireland,  in  1835,  and  afterwards 
chairman  of  the  Irish  Railway  Commission,  he  had 
often  occasion  to  confer  with  Mr.  Bianconi,  who  gave 
him  every  assistance.  Mr.  Drummond  conceived  the 
greatest  respect  for  Bianconi,  and  often  asked  him  how 
it  was  that  he,  a  foreigner,  should  have  acquired  so 
extensive  an  influence  and  so  distinguished  a  position 
in  Ireland. 

"The  question  came  upon  me,"  said  Bianconi,  "by 
surprise,  and  I  did  not  at  the  time  answer  it.  But 
another  day  he  repeated  his  question,  and  I  replied, 
*  Well,  it  tvas  because,  while  the  big  and  the  little  icere 
fighting,  I  crept  wp  between  them,  carried  out  my  en- 
terprise, and  obliged  everybody.'' "    This,  however,  did 


Mr.  Drummond?  s  Testimony.  243 

not  satisfy  Mr.  Drummond,  who  asked  Bianconi  to 
write  down  for  him  an  autobiography,  containing  the 
incidents  of  his  early  life  down  to  the  period  of  his 
great  Irish  enterprise.  Bianconi  proceeded  to  do  this, 
writing  down  his  past  history  in  the  occasional  inter- 
vals which  he  could  snatch  from  the  immense  business 
which  he  still  continued  personally  to  superintend. 
But  before  the  "Drummond  Memoir"  could  be  fin- 
ished, Mr.  Drummond  himself  had  ceased  to  live,  hav- 
ing died  in  1840,  principally  of  overwork.  What  he 
thought  of  Bianconi,  however,  has  been  preserved  in 
his  "Report  of  the  Irish  Railway  Commission  of  1838," 
written  by  Mr.  Drummond  himself,  in  which  he  thus 
speaks  of  his  enterprising  friend  in  starting  and  con- 
ducting the  great  Irish  car  establishment: 

"  With  a  capital  little  exceeding  the  expense  of  out- 
fit he  commenced.  Fortune,  or,  rather,  the  due  reward 
of  industry  and  integrity,  favored  his  first  efforts.  He 
soon  began  to  increase  the  number  of  his  cars  and  mul- 
tiply routes,  until  his  establishment  spread  over  the 
whole  of  Ireland.  These  results  are  the  more  striking 
and  instructive  as  having  been  accomplished  in  a  dis- 
trict which  has  long  been  represented  as  the  focus  of 
unreclaimed  violence  and  barbarism,  where  neither  life 
nor  property  can  be  deemed  secure.  While  many  pos- 
sessing a  personal  interest  in  everything  tending  to 
improve  or  enrich  the  country  have  been  so  misled  or 
inconsiderate  as  to  repel,  by  exaggerated  statements, 
British  capital  from  their  doors,  this  foreigner  chose 
Tipperary  as  the  centre  of  his  operations,  wherein  to 
embark  all  the  fruits  of  his  industry  in  a  traffic  pecul- 
iarly exposed  to  the  power,  and  even  to  the  caprice,  of 
the  peasantry.  The  event  has  shown  that  his  confi- 
dence in  their  good  sense  was  not  ill-grounded. 

"By  a  system  of  steady  and  just  treatment  he  has 
obtained  a  complete  mastery,  exempt  from  lawless  in- 


244  Charles  Bianconi. 

timidation  or  control,  over  the  various  servants  and 
agents  employed  by  him,  and  his  establishment  is  pop- 
ular with  all  classes,  on  account  of  its  general  useful- 
ness and  the  fair,  liberal  spirit  of  its  management. 
The  success  achieved  by  this  spirited  gentleman  is  the 
result,  not  of  a  single  speculation,  which  might  have 
been  favored  by  local  circumstances,  but  of  a  series 
of  distinct  experiments,  all  of  which  have  been  suc- 
cessful." 

When  the  railways  were  actually  made  and  opened, 
they  ran  right  through  the  centre  of  Bianconi's  long- 
established  systems  of  communication.  They  broke 
up  his  lines,  and  sent  them  to  the  right  and  left.  But, 
though  they  greatly  disturbed  him,  they  did  not  de- 
stroy him.  In  his  enterprising  hands  the  railways 
merely  changed  the  direction  of  the  cars.  He  had  at 
first  to  take  about  a  thousand  horses  off  the  road,  with 
thirty-seven  vehicles,  travelling  two  thousand  four  hun- 
dred and  forty-six  miles  daily.  But  he  remodelled  his 
system  so  as  to  run  his  cars  between  the  railway  sta- 
tions and  the  towns  to  the  right  and  left  of  the  main 
lines. 

He  also  directed  his  attention  to  those  parts  of  Ire- 
land which  had  not  before  had  the  benefit  of  his  con- 
veyances. And  in  thus  still  continuing  to  accommo- 
date the  public,  the  number  of  his  horses  and  carriages 
again  increased,  until,  in  1861,  he  was  employing  nine 
hundred  horses,  travelling  over  four  thousand  miles 
daily;  and  in  1866,  when  he  resigned  his  business,  he 
was  running  only  six  hundred  and  eighty-four  miles 
daily  below  the  maximum  run  in  1845,  before  the  rail- 
ways had  begun  to  interfere  with  his  traffic. 

His  cars  were  then  running  to  Dungarvan,  Water- 
ford,  and  Wexford  in  the  southwest  of  Ireland  ;  to 
Bandon,  Rosscarbery,  Skibbereen,  and  Cahirciveen  in 
the  south  ;  to  Tralee,  Gal  way,  Clifden,  Westport,  and 


The  Cars  and  Railways.  245 

Belmullet  in  the  west;  to  Sligo,  Enniskillen,  Strabane, 
and  Letterkenny  in  the  north;  while,  in  the  centre  of 
Ireland,  the  towns  of  Thurles,  Kilkenny,  Birr,  and  Bal- 
linasloe  were  also  daily  served  by  the  cars  of  Bian- 
coni. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  British  Association,  held  in 
Dublin,  in  1857,  Mr.  Bianconi  mentioned  a  fact  which, 
he  thought,  illustrated  the  increasing  prosperity  of  the 
country  and  the  progress  of  the  people.  It  was  that, 
although  the  population  had  so  considerably  decreased 
by  emigration  and  other  causes,  the  proportion  of  trav- 
ellers by  his  conveyances  continued  to  increase,  de- 
monstrating not  only  that  the  people  had  more  money, 
but  that  they  appreciated  the  money  value  of  time,  and 
also  the  advantages  of  the  car  system  established  for 
their  accommodation. 

Although  railways  must  necessarily  have  done  much 
to  promote  the  prosperity  of  Ireland,  it  is  very  doubt- 
ful whether  the  general  passenger  public  were  not  bet- 
ter served  by  the  cars  of  Bianconi  than  by  the  railways 
which  superseded  them.  Bianconi's  cars  were,  on  the 
whole,  cheaper,  and  were  always  run  en  correspondence, 
so  as  to  meet  each  other;  whereas  many  of  the  railway 
trains  in  the  south  of  Ireland,  under  the  competitive 
system  existing  between  the  several  companies,  are 
often  run  so  as  to  miss  each  other.  The  present  work- 
ing of  the  Irish  railway  traffic  provokes  perpetual  irri- 
tation among  the  Irish  people,  and  sufficiently  accounts 
for  the  frequent  petitions  presented  to  Parliament 
that  they  should  be  taken  in  hand  and  worked  by  the 
state. 

Bianconi  continued  to  superintend  his  great  car  es- 
tablishment until  within  the  last  few  years.  He  had 
a  constitution  of  iron,  which  he  expended  in  active 
daily  work.  He  liked  to  have  a  dozen  irons  in  the  fire, 
all  red-hot  at  once.     At  the  age  of  seventy  he  was  still 


246  Charles  Bianeoni. 

a  man  in  his  prime;  and  he  might  be  seen  at  Clonmel 
helping,  at  busy  times,  to  load  the  cars,  unpacking 
and  unstrapping  the  luggage  where  it  seemed  to  be 
inconveniently  placed;  for  he  was  a  man  who  could 
never  stand  by  and  see  others  working  without  having 
a  hand  in  it  himself.  Even  when  well  on  to  eighty, 
he  still  continued  to  grapple  with  the  immense  busi- 
ness involved  in  working  a  traffic  extending  over  two 
thousand  five  hundred  miles  of  road. 

Nor  was  Bianeoni  without  honor  in  his  adopted  coun- 
try. He  began  his  great  enterprise  in  1815,  though 
it  was  not  until  1831  that  he  obtained  letters  of  nat- 
uralization. His  application  for  these  privileges  was 
supported  by  the  magistrates  of  Tipperary  and  by  the 
Grand  Jury,  and  they  were  at  once  granted.  In  1844 
he  was  elected  Mayor  of  Clonmel,  and  took  his  seat  as 
chairman  at  the  Borough  Petty  Sessions  to  dispense 
justice. 

The  first  person  brought  before  him  was  James 
Ryan,  who  had  been  drunk,  and  torn  a  constable's 
belt.  "  Well,  Ryan,"  said  the  magistrate,  "  what 
have  you  to  say?"  "Nothing,  your  worship;  only  I 
wasn't  drunk."  "  Who  tore  the  constable's  belt  ?" 
"  He  was  bloated  after  his  Christmas  dinner,  your 
worship,  and  the  belt  burst!"  "You  are  so  very 
pleasant,"  said  the  magistrate,  "  that  you  will  have  to 
spend  forty-eight  hours  in  jail." 

He  was  re-elected  mayor  in  the  following  year,  very 
much  against  his  wish.  He  now  began  to  buy  land, 
for  "land  hunger"  was  strong  upon  him.  In  1846  he 
bought  the  estate  of  Longfield,  in  the  parish  of  Boher- 
lahan,  county  of  Tipperary.  It  consisted  of  about  a 
thousand  acres  of  good  land,  with  a  large,  cheerful 
house  overlooking  the  River  Suir.  He  went  on  buy- 
ing more  land,  until  he  became  possessor  of  about 
eight  thousand  English  acres. 


Relations  with  O*  Connell.  247 

One  of  his  favorite  sayings  was,  "  Money  melts,  but 
land  holds  while  grass  grows  and  water  runs."  He 
was  an  excellent  landlord,  built  comfortable  houses 
for  his  tenantry,  and  did  what  he  could  for  their  im- 
provement. Without  solicitation,  the  government  ap- 
pointed him  a  justice  of  the  peace  and  a  deputy-lieu- 
tenant for  the  county  of  Tipperary.  Everything  that 
he  did  seemed  to  thrive.  He  was  honest,  straightfor- 
ward, loyal,  and  law-abiding. 

On  first  taking  possession  of  his  estate  at  Longfield, 
he  was  met  by  a  procession  of  the  tenantry,  who  re- 
ceived him  with  great  enthusiasm.  In  his  address  to 
them,  he  said,  among  other  things,  "  Allow  me  to  im- 
press upon  you  the  great  importance  of  respecting  the 
laws.  The  laws  are  made  for  the  good  and  the  benefit 
of  society,  and  for  the  punishment  of  the  wicked.  No 
one  but  an  enemy  would  counsel  you  to  outrage  the 
laws.  Above  all  things,  avoid  secret  and  unlawful 
societies.  Much  of  the  improvement  now  going  on 
among  us  is  owing  to  the  temperate  habits  of  the  peo- 
ple, to  the  mission  of  my  much  respected  friend,  Fa- 
ther Mathew,  and  to  the  advice  of  the  Liberator.  Fol- 
low the  advice  of  O'Connell ;  be  temperate,  moral, 
peaceable;  and  you  will  advance  your  country,  amel- 
iorate your  condition,  and  the  blessing  of  God  will  at- 
tend all  your  efforts." 

Bianconi  was  always  a  great  friend  of  O'Connell. 
From  an  early  period  he  joined  him  in  the  Catholic 
Emancipation  movement.  He  took  part  with  him  in 
founding  the  National  Bank  in  Ireland.  In  course  of 
time  the  two  became  more  intimately  related.  Bian- 
coni's  son  married  O'Connell's  granddaughter,  and 
O'Connell's  nephew,  Morgan  John,  married  Bianco- 
ni's  daughter.  Bianconi's  son  died  in  1864,  leaving 
three  daughters,  but  no  male  heir  to  carry  on  the  fam- 
ily name.     The  old  man  bore  the  blow  of  his  son's 


248  Charles  Bianconi, 

premature  death  with  fortitude,  and  laid  his  remains 
in  the  mortuary  chapel  which  he  built  on  his  estate  at 
Longfield. 

In  the  following  year,  when  he  was  seventy-eight, 
he  met  with  a  severe  accident.  He  was  overturned, 
and  his  thigh  was  severely  fractured.  He  was  laid  up 
for  six  months,  quite  incapable  of  stirring.  He  was 
afterwards  able  to  get  about  in  a  marvellous  way, 
though  quite  crippled.  As  his  life's  work  was  over, 
he  determined  to  retire  finally  from  business,  and  he 
handed  over  the  whole  of  his  cars,  coaches,  horses,  and 
plant,  with  all  the  lines  of  road  he  was  then  working, 
to  his  employees,  on  the  most  liberal  terms. 

My  youngest  son  met  Mr.  Bianconi,  by  appoint- 
ment, at  the  Roman  Catholic  church  at  Boherlahan, 
in  the  summer  of  1872.  Although  the  old  gentleman 
had  to  be  lifted  into  and  out  of  his  carriage  by  his  two 
men-servants,  he  was  still  as  active-minded  as  ever. 
Close  to  the  church  at  Boherlahan  is  Bianconi's  mortu- 
ary chapel,  which  he  built  as  a  sort  of  hobby,  for  the 
last  resting-place  of  himself  and  his  family.  The  first 
person  interred  in  it  was  his  eldest  daughter,  who  died 
in  Italy;  the  second  was  his  only  son.  A  beautiful 
monument,  with  a  bas-relief,  has  been  erected  in  the 
chapel  by  Benzoni,  an  Italian  sculptor,  to  the  memory 
of  his  daughter. 

"As  we  were  leaving  the  chapel,"  my  sqn  informs 
me,  "  we  passed  a  long  Irish  car  containing  about  six- 
teen people,  the  tenants  of  Mr.  Bianconi,  who  are 
brought  at  his  expense  from  all  parts  of  the  estate. 
He  is  very  popular  with  his  tenantry,  regarding  their 
interests  as  his  own;  and  he  often  quotes  the  words  of 
his  friend  Mr.  Drummond,  that  *  property  has  its  du- 
ties as  well  as  its  rights.'  He  has  rebuilt  nearly  every 
house  on  his  extensive  estates  in  Tipperary. 

"  On  our  way  home  the  carriage  stopped  to  let  me 


Ills  Conversation.  210 

down  and  sec  the  strange  remains  of  an  ancient  fort, 
close  by  the  roadside.  It  consists  of  a  high  grass- 
grown  mound,  surrounded  by  a  moat.  It  is  one  of  the 
so-called  Danish  forts,  which  are  found  in  all  parts  of 
Ireland.  If  it  be  true  that  these  forts  were  erected  by 
the  Danes,  they  must  at  one  time  have  had  a  strong 
hold  of  the  greater  part  of  Ireland. 

"The  carriage  entered  a  noble  avenue  of  trees,  with 
views  of  prettily  enclosed  gardens  on  either  side. 
Mr.  Bianconi  exclaimed,  *  Welcome  to  the  Carman's 
Stage!'  Longfield  House,  which  we  approached,  is 
a  fine  old-fashioned  house,  situated  on  the  river  Suir, 
a  few  miles  south  of  Cashel,  one  of  the  most  ancient 
cities  in  Ireland.  Mr.  Bianconi  and  his  family  were 
most  hospitable  ;  and  I  found  him  most  lively  and 
communicative.  He  talked  cleverly  and  with  excel- 
lent choice  of  language  for  about  three  hours,  during 
which  I  learned  much  from  him. 

"  Like  most  men  who  have  accomplished  great  things, 
and  overcome  many  difficulties,  Mr.  Bianconi  is  fond 
of  referring  to  the  past  events  in  his  interesting  life. 
The  acuteness  of  his  conversation  is  wonderful.  He 
hits  off  a  keen  thought  in  a  few  words,  sometimes  full 
of  wit  and  humor.  I  thought  this  very  good:  'Keep 
before  the  wheels,  young  man,  or  they  will  run  over 
you:  always  keep  before  the  wheels!'  He  read  over 
to  me  the  memoir  he  had  prepared  at  the  suggestion 
of  Mr.  Drummond,  relating  to  the  events  of  his  early 
life;  and  this  opened  the  way  for  a  great  many  other 
recollections  not  set  down  in  the  book. 

"He  vividly  remembered  the  parting  from  his 
mother,  nearly  seventy  years  ago,  and  spoke  of  her 
last  words  to  him.  'When  you  remember  me,  think 
of  me  as  waiting  at  this  wTindow,  watching  for  your 
return.'  This  led  him  to  speak  of  the  great  forgetful- 
ness  and  want  of  respect  which  children  have  for  their 

11* 


250  Charles  Bianconi. 

parents  nowadays.  ( We  seem,'  he  said, '  to  have  fallen 
upon  a  disrespectful  age.' 

" '  It  is  strange,'  said  he, '  how  little  things  influence 
one's  mind  and  character.  When  I  was  a  boy  at 
Waterford,  I  bought  an  old  second-hand  book  from 
a  man  on  the  quay,  and  the  maxim  on  its  title-page 
fixed  itself  deeply  on  my  memory.  It  was,  "Truth, 
like  water,  will  find  its  own  level." '  And  this  led 
him  to  speak  of  the  great  influence  which  the  example 
and  instruction  of  Mr.  Rice,  of  the  Christian  Brothers, 
had  had  upon  his  mind  and  character.  '  That  religious 
institution,'  said  he,  *  of  which  Mr.  Rice  was  one  of  the 
founders,  has  now  spread  itself  over  the  country,  and, 
by  means  of  the  instruction  which  the  members  have 
imparted  to  the  poorer  ignorant  classes,  they  have  ef- 
fected quite  a  revolution  in  the  south  of  Ireland.' 

"'I  am  not  much  of  a  reader,'  said  Mr.  Bianconi; 
'  the  best  part  of  my  reading  has  consisted  in  reading 
way-bills.  But  I  was  once  complimented  by  Justice 
Lefroy  upon  my  books.  He  remarked  to  me  what  a 
wonderful  education  I  must  have  had  to  invent  my 
own  system  of  book-keeping.  Yes,'  said  he,  pointing 
to  his  ledgers,  '  there  they  are.'  The  books  are  still 
preserved,  recording  the  progress  of  the  great  car  en- 
terprise. They  show  at  first  the  small  beginnings,  and 
then  the  rapid  growth — the  tens  growing  to  hundreds, 
and  the  hundreds  to  thousands — the  ledgers  and  day- 
books containing,  as  it  were,  the  whole  history  of  the 
undertaking — of  each  car,  of  each  man,  of  each  horse, 
and  of  each  line  of  road,  recorded  most  minutely. 

" '  The  secret  of  my  success,'  said  he,  *  has  been 
promptitude,  fair  dealing,  and  good  humor.  And  this 
I  will  add,  what  I  have  often  said  before,  that  I  never 
did  a  kind  action  but  it  was  returned  to  me  tenfold. 
My  cars  have  never  received  the  slightest  injury  from 
the  people.     Though  travelling  through  the  country 


Biancontis  Death.  251 

for  about  sixty  years,  the  people  have  throughout  re- 
spected the  property  intrusted  to  me.  My  cars  have, 
passed  through  lonely  and  unfrequented  places,  and 
they  have  never,  even  in  the  most  disturbed  times, 
been  attacked.  That,  I  think,  is  an  extraordinary 
testimony  to  the  high  moral  character  of  the  Irish 
people.' 

" '  It  is  not  money,  but  the  genius  of  money  that  I 
esteem,'  said  Bianconi;  'not  money  itself,  but  money 
used  as  a  creative  power.'  And  he  himself  has  fur- 
nished in  his  own  life  the  best  possible  illustration  of 
his  maxim.  He  has  created  a  new  industry,  given  em- 
ployment to  an  immense  number  of  persons,  promoted 
commerce,  extended  civilization ;  and,  though  a  for- 
eigner, has  proved  one  of  the  greatest  of  Ireland's  ben- 
efactors." 

About  two  years  after  the  date  of  my  son's  visit, 
Charles  Bianconi  passed  away,  full  of  years  and  hon- 
ors; and  his  remains  are  laid  beside  those  of  his  son 
and  daughter,  in  the  mortuary  chapel  at  Boherlahan. 
He  died  in  1875,  in  his  ninetieth  year.  Well  might 
Signor  Henrico  Mayer  say,  at  the  British  Association 
at  Cork  in  1846,  that  "he  felt  proud,  as  an  Italian,  to 
hear  a  compatriot  so  deservedly  eulogized ;  and  al- 
though Ireland  might  claim  Bianconi  as  a  citizen,  yet 
the  Italians  should  ever  with  pride  hail  him  as  a  coun- 
tryman, whose  industry  and  virtue  reflectexl  honor  on 
the  country  of  his  birth." 


CHAPTER  X. 
INDUSTRY  IN  IRELAND. 

THROUGH    COXNAUGHT   AND    ULSTER,  TO    BELFAST. 

"  The  Irish  people  have  a  past  to  boast  of,  and  a  future  to  create." 
—J.  F.  O'Carrol. 

"  One  of  the  great  questions  is  how  to  find  an  outlet  for  Irish  man- 
ufactures. We  ought  to  be  an  exporting  nation,  or  we  never  will  be 
able  to  compete  successfully  with  our  trade  rivals." — E.  D.  Gray. 

"  Ireland  may  become  a  Nation  again,  if  we  all  sacrifice  our  parri- 
cidal passions,  prejudices,  and  resentments  on  the  altar  of  our  coun- 
try. Then  shall  your  manufactures  flourish,  and  Ireland  be  free." — 
Daniel  O'Coxnkll. 

I  spent  a  portion  of  my  last  summer  holiday  in  Ire- 
land. I  had  seen  the  south  of  Ireland,  and  the  roman- 
tic scenery  of  Cork  and  Kerry,  more  than  once;  and 
now  I  desired  to  visit  the  coast  of  Galway  and  the 
highland  scenery  of  Connemara.  On  communicating 
my  intentions  to  a  young  Italian  gentleman — Count 
Giuseppe  Zoppola — he  expressed  a  desire  to  accom- 
pany me;  but  he  must  first  communicate  with  his  fa- 
ther at  Kigoline,  near  Brescia.  The  answer  he  re- 
ceived was  unsatisfactory.  "If  you  go  to  Ireland," 
said  his  father,  "you  will  be  shot."  "Nonsense!"  I 
replied,  when  the  message  was  communicated  to  me; 
"I  have  children  and  grandchildren  in  Ireland,  and 
they  are  as  safe  there  as  in  any  part  of  England." 

It  is  certainly  unfortunate  for  Ireland  that  the  in- 
telligence published  regarding  it  is  usually  of  an  alarm- 
ing character.  Little  is  said  of  "  the  trivial  round,  the 
common  task "  of  the  great  body  of  working  people, 


True  Condition  of  Ireland.  253 

of  which  the  population  of  Ireland,  as  well  as  of  the 
United  Kingdom,  mainly  consists.  But  if  an  excep- 
tional outrage  occurs,  it  is  spread  by  the  press  over  the 
civilized  world,  not  only  at  home,  but  abroad.  This 
has  the  effect  of  checking,  not  only  the  influx  of  cap- 
ital into  Ireland,  which  is  the  true  Wages  Fund  for 
the  employment  of  labor,  but  it  tends  to  propagate 
the  idea  that  Ireland,  with  its  majestic  scenery,  is  an 
unsafe  country  to  travel  in;  whereas  the  fact  is  that, 
apart  from  the  crimes  arising  out  of  agrarianism,  there 
is  less  theft,  less  cheating,  less  house-breaking,  less  rob- 
bery of  all  kinds  there,  than  in  any  country  of  the 
same  size  in  the  civilized  world.  I  have  travelled  in 
the  remotest  parts  of  Ireland  —  by  the  magnificent 
scenery  round  Bantry  Bay  in  the  southwest,  and  along 
the  wild  coast  scenery  of  Donegal  in  the  northwest 
— and  invariably  found  the  peasantry  kind,  civil,  and 
obliging. 

Further  communications  passed  between  my  young 
friend,  the  Italian  count,  and  his  father;  and  the  result 
was  that  he  accompanied  me  to  Ireland,  on  the  express 
understanding  that  he  was  to  send  home  a  letter  daily 
by  post  assuring  his  friends  of  his  safety.  We  went 
together  accordingly  to  Galway,  up  Lough  Corrib  to 
Cong  and  Lough  Mask,  by  the  romantic  lakes  and 
mountains  of  Connemara  to  Clifden  and  Letterfrack, 
and  through  the  lovely  pass  of  Kylemoor  to  Leenane; 
along  the  fiord  of  Killury;  then  on,  by  Westport  and 
Ballina  to  Sligo.  Letters  were  posted  daily  by  my 
young  friend ;  and  every  day  we  went  forward  in 
safety. 

But  how  lonely  was  the  country !  We  did  not  meet 
a  single  American  tourist  during  the  whole  course  of 
our  visit,  and  the  Americans  are  the  most  travelling 
people  in  the  world.  Although  the  railway  companies 
have  given  every  facility  for  visiting  Connemara  and 


254  Industry  in  Ireland. 

the  scenery  of  the  west  of  Ireland,  we  only  met  one 
single  English  tourist,  accompanied  by  his  daughter. 
The  Bianconi  long-car  between  Clifden  and  "Westport 
had  been  taken  off  for  want  of  support.  The  only  per- 
sons who  seemed  to  have  no  fear  of  Irish  agrarianism 
were  the  English  fishermen,  who  are  ready  to  brave 
all  dangers,  imaginaiy  or  supposed,  provided  they  can 
only  kill  a  big  salmon  !  And  all  the  rivers  flowing 
westward  into  the  Atlantic  are  full  of  fine  fish.  While 
at  Galway,  we  looked  down  into  the  river  Corrib  from 
the  Upper  Bridge,  and  beheld  it  literally  black  with 
the  backs  of  salmon !  They  were  waiting  for  a  flood 
to  enable  them  to  ascend  the  ladder  into  Lough  Cor- 
rib. While  there,  nineteen  hundred  salmon  were  taken 
in  one  day  by  nets  in  the  bay. 

Galway  is  a  declining  town.  It  has  docks,  but  no 
shipping ;  bonded  warehouses,  but  no  commerce.  It 
has  a  community  of  fishermen  at  Claddagh,  but  the 
fisheries  of  the  bay  are  neglected.  As  one  of  the  poor 
men  of  the  place  exclaimed,  "Poverty  is  the  curse  of 
Ireland."  On  looking  at  Galway  from  the  Claddagh 
side,  it  seems  as  if  to  have  suffered  from  a  bombard- 
ment. Where  a  roof  has  fallen  in,  nothing  has  been 
done  to  repair  it.  It  was  of  no  use.  The  ruin  has 
been  left  to  go  on.  The  mills,  which  used  to  grind 
home-grown  corn,  are  now  unemployed.  The  corn 
comes  ready  ground  from  America.  Nothing  is  thought 
of  but  emigration,  and  the  best  people  are  going,  leav- 
ing the  old,  the  weak,  and  the  inefficient  at  home. 
"  The  laborer,"  said  the  late  President  Garfield,  "  has 
but  one  commodity  to  sell — his  day's  work.  It  is  his 
sole  reliance.  He  must  sell  it  to-day,  or  it  is  lost  for- 
ever." And  as  the  poor  Irishman  cannot  sell  his  day's 
labor,  he  must  needs  emigrate  to  some  other  country, 
where  his  only  commodity  may  be  in  demand. 

While  at  Galway,  I  read  with  interest  an  eloquent 


Irish  Manufactures.  255 

speech  delivered  by  Mr.  Parnell  at  the  banquet  held 
in  the  great  hall  of  the  exhibition  at  Cork.  Mr.  Par- 
nell asked,  with  much  reason,  why  manufactures  should 
not  be  established  and  encouraged  in  the  south  of  Ire- 
land, as  in  other  parts  of  the  country.  Why  should 
not  capital  be  invested,  and  factories  and  workshops 
developed,  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  king- 
dom ?  "I  confess,"  he  said,  "  I  should  like  to  give 
Ireland  a  fair  opportunity  of  working  her  home  manu- 
factures. We  can  each  one  of  us  do  much  to  revive 
the  ancient  name  of  our  nation  in  those  industrial  pur- 
suits which  have  done  so  much  to  increase  and  render 
glorious  those  greater  nations  by  the  side  of  which  we 
live.  I  trust  that  before  many  years  are  over  we  shall 
have  the  honor  and  pleasure  of  meeting  in  even  a  more 
splendid  palace  than  this,  and  of  seeing  in  the  interval 
that  the  quick-witted  genius  of  the  Irish  race  has  prof- 
ited by  the  lessons  which  this  beautiful  exhibition  must 
undoubtedly  teach,  and  that  much  will  have  been  done 
to  make  our  nation  happy,  prosperous,  and  free." 

Mr.  Parnell,  in  the  course  of  his  speech,  referred  to 
the  manufactures  which  had  at  one  time  nourished  in 
Ireland  —  to  the  flannels  of  Rathdrum,  the  linens  of 
Bandon,  the  cottons  of  Cork,  and  the  gloves  of  Limer- 
ick. Why  should  not  these  things  exist  again  ?  "  We 
have  a  people  who  are  by  nature  quick  and  facile  to 
learn,  who  have  shown  in  many  other  countries  that 
they  are  industrious  and  laborious,  and  who  have  not 
been  excelled — whether  in  the  pursuits  of  agriculture 
under  a  midday  sun  in  the  field,  or  among  the  vast 
looms  in  the  factory  districts — by  the  people  of  any 
country  on  the  face  of  the  globe."  *  Most  just  and 
eloquent ! 

The  only  weak  point  in  Mr.  Parnell's  speech  was 

*  Report  in  the  Cork  Examiner,  5th  July,  1883. 


256  Industry  in  Ireland. 

where  he  urged  his  audience  "not  to  use  any  article  of 
the  manufacture  of  any  other  country  except  Ireland, 
where  you  can  get  up  an  Irish  manufacture."  The 
true  remedy  is  to  make  Irish  articles  of  the  best  and 
cheapest,  and  they  will  be  bought,  not  only  by  the 
Irish,  but  by  the  English  and  people  of  all  nations. 
Manufactures  cannot  be  "  boycotted."  They  will  find 
their  way  into  all  lands,  in  spite  even  of  the  most  re- 
strictive tariffs.  Take,  for  instance,  the  case  of  Bel- 
fast— hereafter  to  be  referred  to.  If  the  manufactur- 
ing population  of  that  town  were  to  rely  for  their 
maintenance  on  the  demand  for  their  productions  at 
home,  they  would  simply  starve.  But  they  make  the 
best  and  the  cheapest  goods  of  their  kind,  and  hence 
the  demand  for  them  is  world-wide. 

There  is  an  abundant  scope  for  the  employment  of 
capital  and  skilled  labor  in  Ireland.  During  the  last 
few  years  land  has  been  falling  raj3idly  out  of  culti- 
vation. The  area  under  cereal  crops  has  accordingly 
considerably  decreased.*  Since  1868,  not  less  than 
four  hundred  thousand  acres  have  been  disused  for 
this  purpose.f  Wheat  can  be  bought  better  and 
cheaper  in  America,  and  imported  into  Ireland  ground 
into  flour.  The  consequence  is,  that  the  men  who 
worked  the  soil,  as  well  as  the  men  who  ground  the 
corn,  are  thrown  out  of  employment,  and  there  is  noth- 
ing left  for  them  but  subsistence  upon  the  poor-rates, 
emigration  to  other  countries,  or  employment  in  some 
new  domestic  industry. 

*  In  1883,  as  compared  with  1882,  there  was  a  decrease  of  fifty-eight 
thousand  and  twenty-two  acres  in  the  land  devoted  to  the  growth  of 
wheat ;  there  was  a  total  decrease  of  one  hundred  and  fourteen  thou- 
sand eight  hundred  and  seventy-one  acres  in  the  land  under  tillage. — 
"Agricultural  Statistics,  Ireland,"  1883.  "Parliamentary  Return," 
c.  3768. 

t  "  Statistical  Abstract  for  the  United  Kingdom,"  1883.  ( 


Bank  Deposits.  257 


Ireland  is  by  no  means  the  "  poor  Ireland  "  that  she 
is  commonly  supposed  to  be.  The  last  returns  of  the 
postmaster-general  show  that  she  is  growing  in  wealth. 
Irish  thrift  has  been  steadily  at  work  during  the  last 
twenty  years.  Since  the  establishment  of  the  Post- 
office  Savings  Banks,  in  1861,  the  deposits  have  annu- 
ally increased  in  value.  At  the  end  of  1882,  more 
than  two  millions  sterling  had  been  deposited  in  these 
banks,  and  every  county  participated  in  the  increase.* 
The  largest  accumulations  were  in  the  counties  of 
Dublin,  Antrim,  Cork,  Down,  Tipperary,  and  Tyrone, 
in  the  order  named.  Besides  this  amount,  the  sum  of 
£2,082,413  was  due  to  depositors  in  the  ordinary  sav- 
ings banks  on  the  20th  of  November,  1882;  or,  in  all, 
more  than  four  millions  sterling,  the  deposits  of  small 
capitalists.  At  Cork,  at  the  end  of  last  year,  it  was 
found  that  the  total  deposits  made  in  the  savings  bank 
had  been  £76,000,  or  an  increase  of  £6675  over  the 
preceding  twelve  months.  But  this  is  not  all.  The 
Irish  middle  classes  are  accustomed  to  deposit  most  of 
their  savings  in  the  Joint  Stock  banks;  and  from  the 
returns  presented  to  the  lord-lieutenant,  dated  the  31st 
of  January,  1883,  we  find  that  these  had  been  more 
than  doubled  in  twenty  years,  the  deposits  and  cash 
balances  having  increased  from  £14,389,000  at  the  end 
of  1862,  to  £32,746,000  at  the  end  of  1882.  During  the 
last  year  they  had  increased  by  the  sum  of  £2,585,000. 
"So  large  an  increase  in  bank  deposits  and  cash  bal- 
ances," says  the  Report,  "is  highly  satisfactory."  It 
may  be  added  that  the  investments  in  government  and 

*  The  particulars  are  these :  deposits  in  Irish  Post-office  Savings 
Banks,  31st  December,  1882,  £lv925,440  ;  to  the  credit  of  depositors 
and  Government  stock,  £125,000 ;  together,  £2,050,410.  The  increase 
of  deposits  over  those  made  in  the  preceding  year,  were :  in  Dublin, 
£31,321;  in  Antrim,  £23,328;  in  Tyrone,  £21,315;  in  Cork, 
£17,034;  and  in  Down,  £10,382. 


258  Industry  in  Ireland. 

India  stock,  on  which  dividends  were  paid  in  the  Bank 
of  Ireland,  at  the  end  of  1882,  amounted  to  not  less 
than  £31,804,000. 

It  is  proper  that  Ireland  should  be  bountiful  with 
her  increasing  means.  It  has  been  stated  that  during 
the  last  eighteen  years  her  people  have  contributed 
not  less  than  six  millions  sterling  for  the  purpose  of 
building  places  of  worship,  convents,  schools,  and  col- 
leges, in  connection  with  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
not  to  speak  of  their  contributions  for  other  patriotic 
objects. 

It  would  be  equally  proper  if  some  of  the  saved  sur- 
plus capital  of  Ireland,  as  suggested  by  Mr.  Parnell, 
were  invested  in  the  establishment  of  Irish  manufac- 
tures. This  would  not  only  give  profitable  occupation 
to  the  unemployed,  but  enable  Ireland  to  become  an 
increasingly  exporting  nation.  We  are  informed  by 
an  Irish  banker,  that  there  is  abundance  of  money  to 
be  got  in  Ireland  for  any  industry  which  has  a  reason- 
able chance  of  success.  One  thing,  however,  is  certain : 
there  must  be  perfect  safety.  An  old  writer  has  said 
that  "Government  is  a  badge  of  lost  innocence:  the 
palaces  of  kings  are  built  upon  the  ruins  of  the  bow- 
ers of  paradise."  The  main  use  of  government  is  pro- 
tection against  the  weaknesses  and  selfishness  of  hu- 
man nature.  If  there  be  no  protection  for  life,  liberty, 
property,  and  the  fruits  of  accumulated  industry,  gov- 
ernment becomes  comparatively  useless,  and  society  is 
driven  back  upon  its  first  principles. 

Capital  is  the  most  sensitive  of  all  things.  It  flies 
turbulence  and  strife,  and  thrives  only  in  security  and 
freedom.  It  must  have  complete  safety.  If  tampered 
with  by  restrictive  laws,  or  hampered  by  combinations, 
it  suddenly  disappears.  "  The  age  of  glory  of  a  na- 
tion," said  Sir  Humphry  Davy,  "is  the  age  of  its  se- 
curity.    The  same  dignified  feeling  which  urges  men 


Banishment  of  Trades.  259 

to  gain  a  dominion  over  nature  will  preserve  them 
from  the  dominion  of  slavery.  Natural  and  moral 
and  religious  knowledge  are  of  one  family;  and  happy 
is  the  country  and  great  its  strength  where  they  dwell 
together  in  union." 

Dublin  was  once  celebrated  for  its  ship-building,  its 
timber-trade,  its  iron  manufactures,  and  its  steam  print- 
ing; Limerick  was  celebrated  for  its  gloves;  Kilkenny 
for  its  blankets;  Bandon  for  its  woollen  and  linen  man- 
ufactures. But  most  of  these  trades  were  banished  by 
strikes.*  Dr.  Doyle  stated  before  the  Irish  Committee 
of  1830  that  the  almost  total  extinction  of  the  Kilken- 
ny blanket-trade  was  attributable  to  the  combinations 
of  the  weavers ;  and  O'Connell  admitted  that  trades 
unions  had  wrought  more  evil  to  Ireland  than  absen- 
teeism and  Saxon  maladministration.  But  working 
men  have  recently -become  more  prudent  and  thrifty; 
and  it  is  believed  that  under  the  improved  system  of 
moderate  counsel,  and  arbitration  between  employers 
and  employed,  a  more  hopeful  issue  is  likely  to  attend 
the  future  of  such  enterprises. 

Another  thing  is  clear.  A  country  may  be  levelled 
down  by  idleness  and  ignorance  ;  it  can  only  be  lev- 
elled up  by  industry  and  intelligence.  It  is  easy  to 
pull  down;  it  is  very  difficult  to  build  up.  The  hands 
that  cannot  erect  a  hovel  may  demolish  a  palace.  We 
have  but  to  look  to  Switzerland  to  see  what  a  country 
may  become  which  mixes  its  industry  with  its  brains. 
That  little  land  has  no  coal,  no  seaboard  by  which  she 
can  introduce  it,  and  is  shut  off  from  other  countries 
by  lofty  mountains,  as  well  as  by  hostile  tariffs  ;  and 
yet  Switzerland  is  one  of  the  most  prosperous  nations 


*  The  only  thriving  manufacture  now  in  Dublin  is  that  of  intoxicat- 
ing drinks — beer,  porter,  stout,  and  whiskey.  Brewing  and  distilling 
do  not  require  skilled  labor,  so  that  strikes  do  not  affect  them. 


260  Industry  in  Ireland, 

in  Europe,  because  governed  and  regulated  by  intelli- 
gent industry.  Let  Ireland  look  to  Switzerland,  and 
she  need  not  despair. 

Ireland  is  a  much  richer  country  by  nature  than  is 
generally  supposed.  In  fact,  she  has  not  yet  been 
properly  explored.  There  is  copper-ore  in  Wicklow, 
Waterford,  and  Cork.  The  Leitrim  iron-ores  are  fa- 
mous for  their  riches;  and  there  is  good  ironstone  in 
Kilkenny,  as  well  as  in  Ulster.  The  Connaught  ores 
are  mixed  with  coal-beds.  Kaolin,  porcelain  clay,  and 
coarser  clay  abound;  but  it  is  only  at  Belleek  that  it 
has  been  employed  in  the  pottery  manufacture.  But 
the  sea  about  Ireland  is  still  less  explored  than  the 
land.  All  round  the  Atlantic  seaboard  of  the  Irish 
coast  are  shoals  of  herring  and  mackerel,  which  might 
be  food  for  men,  but  are  at  present  only  consumed  by 
the  multitudes  of  sea-birds  which  follow  them. 

In  the  daily  papers  giving  an  account  of  the  Cork 
Exhibition  appeared  the  following  paragraph  :  "  An 
interesting  exhibit  will  be  a  quantity  of  preserved  her- 
rings from  Lowestoft,  caught  off  the  old  head  of  Kin- 
sale,  and  returned  to  Cork  after  undergoing  a  preserv- 
ing process  in  England."  *  Fish  caught  off  the  coast 
of  Ireland  by  English  fishermen,  taken  to  England  and 
cured,  and  then  "  returned  to  Cork "  for  exhibition  ! 
Here  is  an  opening  for  patriotic  Irishmen.  Why  not 
catch  and  preserve  the  fish  at  home,  and  get  the  entire 
benefit  of  the  fish  traffic  ?  Will  it  be  believed  that 
there  is  probably  more  money  value  in  the  seas  round 
Ireland  than  there  is  in  the  land  itself.  This  is  actu- 
ally the  case  with  the  sea  round  the  county  of  Aber- 
deen.f 


*  Times,  11th  June,  1883. 

t  The  valuation  of  the  county  of  Aberdeen  (exclusive  of  the  city) 
was  recently  £866,816,  whereas  the  value  of  the  herrings  (seven  hun- 


The  Irish  Fisheries.  261 

A  vast  source  of  wealth  lies  at  the  very  doors  of  the 
Irish  people.  But  the  harvest  of  an  ocean  teeming 
with  life  is  allowed  to  pass  into  other  hands.  The 
majority  of  the  boats  which  take  part  in  the  fishery  at 
Kinsale  are  from  the  little  island  of  Man,  from  Corn- 
wall, from  France,  and  from  Scotland.  The  fishermen 
catch  the  fish,  salt  them,  and  carry  them  or  send  them 
away.  While  the  Irish  boats  are  diminishing  in  num- 
ber, those  of  the  strangers  are  increasing.  In  an  East 
Lothian  paper  published  in  May,  1881,  I  find  the  fol- 
lowing paragraph,  under  the  head  of  "Cockenzie:" 

"  Departure  of  Boats.  —  In  the  early  part  of  this 
week,  a  number  of  the  boats  here  have  left  for  the 
herring  -  fishery  at  Kinsale,  in  Ireland.  The  success 
attending  their  labors  last  year  at  that  place  and  at 
Howth  has  induced  more  of  them  than  usual  to  pro- 
ceed thither  this  year." 

It  may  not  be  generally  known  that  Cockenzie  is  a 
little  fishing  village  on  the  Firth  of  Forth,  in  Scotland, 
where  the  fishermen  have  provided  themselves,  at  their 
own  expense,  with  about  fifty  decked  fishing  -  boats, 
each  costing,  with  nets  and  gear,  about  £500.  With 
these  boats  they  carry  on  their  pursuits  on  the  coast 
of  Scotland,  England,  and  Ireland.  In  1882,  they  sent 
about  thirty  boats  to  Kinsale  *  and  Howth.     The  prof- 

dred  and  forty-eight  thousand  seven  hundred  and  twenty-six  barrels) 
caught  round  the  coast  (at  25s.  the  barrel)  was  £935,907,  thereby  ex- 
ceeding the  estimated  annual  rental  of  the  county  by  £69,091.  The 
Scotch  fishermen  catch  over  a  million  barrels  of  herrings  annually, 
representing  a  value  of  about  a  million  and  a  half  sterling. 

*  A  recent  number  of  Land  and  Water  supplies  the  following  in- 
formation as  to  the  fishing  at  Kinsale:  "The  takes  offish  have  been 
so  enormous  and  unprecedented  that  buyers  can  scarcely  be  found, 
even  when,  as  now,  mackerel  are  selling  at  one  shilling  per  six  score. 
Piles  of  magnificent  fish  lie  rotting  in  the  sun.  The  sides  of  Kinsale 
Harbor  are  strewn  with  them,  and  frequently,  when  they  have  become 
a  little  '  touched,'  whole  boat-loads  are  thrown  overboard  into  the  wa- 


262  Industry  in  Ireland. 

its  of  their  fishing  has  been  such  as  to  enable  them, 
with  the  assistance  of  Lord  Wemyss,  to  build  for  them- 
selves a  convenient  harbor  at  Port  Seaton,  without  any 
help  from  the  government.  They  find  that  self-help 
is  the  best  help,  and  that  it  is  absurd  to  look  to  the 
government  and  the  public  purse  for  what  they  can 
best  do  for  themselves. 

The  wealth  of  the  ocean  round  Ireland  has  long 
been  known.  As  long  ago  as  the  ninth  and  tenth  cen- 
turies, the  Danes  established  a  fishery  off  the  western 
coasts,  and  carried  on  a  lucrative  trade  with  the  south 
of  Europe.  In  Queen  Mary's  reign,  Philip  II.  of  Spain 
paid  £1000  annually  in  consideration  of  his  subjects 
being  allowed  to  fish  on  the  northwest  coast  of  Ire- 
land; and  it  appears  that  the  money  was  brought  into 
the  Irish  Exchequer.  In  1650,  Sweden  was  permitted, 
as  a  favor,  to  employ  a  hundred  vessels  in  the  Irish 
fishery;  and  the  Dutch  in  the  reign  of  Charles  I.  were 
admitted  to  the  fisheries  on  the  payment  of  £30,000. 
In  1673,  Sir  W.  Temple,  in  a  letter  to  Lord  Essex,  says 
that  "  the  fishing  of  Ireland  might  prove  a  mine  under 
water  as  rich  as  any  under  ground."  * 

The  coasts  of  Ireland  abound  in  all  the  kinds  of  fish 
in  common  use  —  cod,  ling,  haddock,  hake,  mackerel, 
herring,  whiting,  conger,  turbot,  brill,  bream,  soles, 
plaice,  dories,  and  salmon.  The  banks  off  the  coast 
of  Galway  are  frequented  by  myriads  of  excellent 
fish  ;    yet,  of  the  small  quantity  caught,  the  bulk  is 

ter.  This  great  waste  is  to  be  attributed  to  scarcity  of  hands  to  salt 
the  fish  and  want  of  packing-boxes.  Some  of  the  boats  are  said  to 
have  made  as  much  as  £500  this  season.  The  local  fishing  company- 
are  making  active  preparations  for  the  approaching  herring  fishery, 
and  it  is  anticipated  that  Kinsale  may  become  one  of  the  centres  of 
this  description  of  fishing." 

*  Statistical  Journal  for  March,  1848.  Paper  by  Eichard  Valpy 
on  "  The  Resources  of  the  Irish  Sea  Fisheries,"  pp.  55-72. 


Importation  of  Fish.  263 

taken  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  shores. 
Galway  Bay  is  said  to  be  the  finest  fishing  ground  in 
the  world;  but  the  fish  cannot  be  expected  to  come  on 
shore  unsought  :  they  must  be  found,  followed,  and 
netted.  The  fishing-boats  from  the  west  of  Scotland 
are  very  successful;  and  they  often  return  the  fish  to 
Ireland,  cured,  which  had  been  taken  out  of  the  Irish 
bays.  "  I  tested  this  fact  in  Galway,"  says  Mr.  S.  C. 
Hall.  "  I  had  ordered  fish  for  dinner  ;  two  salt  had- 
docks were  brought  to  me.  On  inquiry,  I  ascertained 
where  they  were  bought,  and  learned  from  the  seller 
that  he  was  the  agent  of  a  Scotch  firm,  whose  boats 
were  at  that  time  loading  in  the  bay."  *  But  although 
Scotland  imports  some  eighty  thousand  barrels  of  cured 
herrings  annually  into  Ireland,  that  is  not  enough ;  for 
we  find  that  there  is  a  regular  importation  of  cured  her- 
rings, cod,  ling,  and  hake,  from  Newfoundland  and 
Nova  Scotia,  towards  the  food  of  the  Irish  peo- 
ple^ 

.The  fishing  village  of  Claddagh,  at  Galway,  is  more 
decaying  than  ever.  It  seems  to  have  suffered  from  a 
bombardment,  like  the  rest  of  the  town.  The  houses 
of  the  fishermen,  when  they  fall  in,  are  left  in  ruins. 
While  the  French  and  English  and  Scotch  boats  leave 
the  coast  laden  with  fish,  the  Claddagh  men  remain 
empty-handed.  They  will  only  fish  on  "  lucky  days," 
so  that  the  Galway  market  is  often  destitute  of  fish, 


*  Hall's  "Retrospect  of  a  Long  Life,"  vol.  ii.  p.  324. 

t  The  Commissioners  of  Irish  Fisheries,  in  one  of  their  reports,  ob- 
serve: "Notwithstanding  the  diminished  population,  the  fish  captured 
round  the  coast  is  so  inadequate  to  the  wants  of  the  population  that 
fully  £150,000  worth  of  ling,  cod,  and  herring  are  annually  imported 
from  Norway,  Newfoundland,  and  Scotland,  the  vessels  bearing  these 
cargoes,  as  they  approach  the  shores  of  Ireland,  frequently  sailing 
through  large  shoals  of  fish  of  the  same  description  as  they  are 
freighted  with!'' 


264  Industry  in  Ireland, 

while  the  Claddagh  people  are  starving.  On  one  oc- 
casion an  English  company  was  formed  for  the  pur- 
pose of  fishing  and  curing  fish  at  Galway,  as  is  now 
done  at  Yarmouth,  Grimsby,  Fraserburgh,  Wick,  and 
other  places.  Operations  were  commenced,  but  as 
soon  as  the  English  fishermen  put  to  sea  in  their 
boats,  the  Claddagh  men  fell  upon  them,  and  they 
were  glad  to  escape  with  their  lives.*  Unfortunately, 
the  Claddagh  men  have  no  organization,  no  fixed  rules, 
no  settled  determination  to  work,  unless  when  pressed 

*  The  following  examination  of  Mr.  J.  Ennis,  chairman  of  the  Mid- 
land and  Great  Western  Railway,  took  place  before  the  "Royal  Com- 
mission on  Railways,"  as  long  ago  as  the  year  1846  : 

Chairman. — "Is  the  fish  traffic  of  any  importance  to  your  railway  ?" 

Mr.  Ennis. — "Of  course  it  is,  and  we  give  it  all  the  facilities  that 
we  can.  .  .  .  But  the  Galway  fisheries,  where  one  would  expect  to 
find  plenty  offish,  are  totally  neglected." 

Sir  Rowland  Hill— "What  is  the  reason  of  that?" 

Mr.  Ennis. — "I  will  endeavor  to  explain.  I  had  occasion  a  few 
nights  ago  to  speak  to  a  gentleman  in  the  House  of  Commons  with 
regard  to  an  application  to  the  Fishery  Board  for  £2000  to  restore  the 
pier  at  Buffin,  in  Clew  Bay,  and  I  said,  '  Will  you  join  me  in  the  ap- 
plication ?  I  am  told  it  is  a  place  that  swarms  with  fish,  and  if  we 
had  a  pier  there  the  fishermen  will  have  some  security,  and  they  will 
go  out.'  The  only  answer  I  received  was,  'They  will  not  go  out; 
they  pay  no  attention  whatever  to  the  fisheries ;  they  allow  the  fish  to 
come  and  go  without  making  any  effort  to  catch  them.  .  .  .' " 

Mr.  Ayrton. — "  Do  you  think  that  if  English  fishermen  went  to  the 
west  coast  of  Ireland  they  would  be  able  to  get  on  in  harmony  with 
the  native  fishermen  ?" 

Mr.  Ennis. — "We  know  the  fact  to  be,  that  some  years  ago  a 
company  was  established  for  the  purpose  of  trawling  in  Galway  Bay, 
and  what  was  the  consequence  ?  The  Irish  fishermen,  who  inhabit  a 
region  in  the  neighborhood  of  Galway,  called  Claddagh,  turned  out 
against  them,  and  would  not  allow  them  to  trawl,  and  the  Englishmen 
very  properly  went  away  with  their  lives." 

Sir  Rowland  Hill. — "Then  they  -will  neither  fish  themselves  nor 
allow  any  one  else  to  fish !" 

Mr.  Ennis. — "It  seems  to  be  so." — "Minutes  of  Evidence,"  pp. 
175,  176. 


The  Fishing  Fleets.  265 

by  necessity.  The  appearance  of  the  men  and  of  their 
cabins  show  that  they  are  greatly  in  want  of  capital; 
and  fishing  cannot  be  successfully  performed  without 
a  sufficiency  of  this  industrial  element. 

Illustrations  of  this  neglected  industry  might  be 
given  to  any  extent.  Herring  fishing,  cod  fishing,  and 
pilchard  fishing,  are  unlike  untouched.  The  Irish  have 
a  strong  prejudice  against  the  pilchard;  they  believe 
it  to  be  an  unlucky  fish,  and  that  it  will  rot  the  net 
that  takes  it.  The  Cornishmen  do  not  think  so,  for 
they  find  the  pilchard  fishing  to  be  a  source  of  great 
wealth.  The  pilchards  strike  upon  the  Irish  coast  first 
before  they  reach  Cornwall.  When  Mr.  Brady,  In- 
spector of  Irish  Fisheries,  visited  St.  Ives  a  few  years 
ago,  he  saw  captured,  in  one  seine  alone,  nearly  ten 
thousand  pounds  of  this  fish. 

Not  long  since,  according  to  a  northern  local  paper,* 
a  large  fleet  of  vessels  in  full  sail  were  seen  from  the 
west  coast  of  Donegal,  evidently  making  for  the  shore. 
Many  surmises  were  made  about  the  unusual  sight. 
Some  thought  it  was  the  Fenians,  others  the  Home 
Rulers,  others  the  Irish- American  Dynamiters.  Noth- 
ing of  the  kind  !  It  was  only  a  fleet  of  Scotch  smacks, 
sixty-four  in  number,  fishing  for  herring  between  Tor- 
ry  Island  and  Horn  Head.  The  Irish  might  say  to  the 
Scotch  fishermen,  in  the  words  of  the  Morayshire  le- 
gend, "  Rejoice,  O  my  brethren,  in  the  gifts  of  the  sea, 
for  they  enrich  you  without  making  any  one  else  the 
poorer  !"  But  while  the  Irish  are  overlooking  their 
treasure  of  herring,  the  Scotch  are  carefully  cultivat- 
ing it.  The  Irish  fleet  of  fishing-boats  fell  off  from 
twenty-seven  thousand  one  hundred  and  forty-two  in 
1823  to  seven  thousand  one  hundred  and  eighty-one  in 
1873  ;  and  in  1882  they  were  still  further  reduced  to 

*  The  Derry  Journal. 
12 


266  Industry  in  Ireland. 

six  thousand  and  eighty  -  nine.*  Yet  Ireland  has  a 
coast-line  of  fishing  ground  of  nearly  three  thousand 
miles  in  extent. 

The  bights  and  bays  on  the  west  coast  of  Ireland — 
off  Erris,  Mayo,  Connemara,  and  Donegal — swarm  with 
fish.  Near  Achill  Bay,  two  thousand  mackerel  were 
lately  taken  at  a  single  haul ;  and  Clew  Bay  is  often 
alive  with  fish.  In  Scull  Bay  and  Crookhaven,  near 
Cape  Clear,  they  are  so  plentiful  that  the  peasants 
often  knock  them  on  the  head  with  oars,  but  will  not 
take  the  trouble  to  net  them.  These  swarms  of  fish 
might  be  a  source  of  permanent  wealth.  A  gentleman 
of  Cork  one  day  borrowed  a  common  rod  and  line  from 
a  Cornish  miner  in  his  employment,  and  caught  fifty- 
seven  mackerel  from  the  jetty  in  Scull  Bay  before 
breakfast.  Each  of  these  mackerel  was  worth  two- 
pence in  Cork  market,  thirty  miles  off.  Yet  the  peo- 
ple round  about,  many  of  whom  were  short  of  food, 
were  doing  nothing  to  catch  them,  but  expecting  Prov- 
idence to  supply  their  wants.  Providence,  however, 
always  likes  to  be  helped.  Some  people  forget  that 
the  Giver  of  all  good  gifts  requires  us  to  seek  for  them 
by  industry,  prudence,  and  perseverance.! 

*  "Report  of  Inspectors  of  Irish  Fisheries  for  1882." 
t  The  "Report  of  the  Inspectors  of  Irish  Fisheries  on  the  Sea  and 
Inland  Fisheries  of  Ireland  for  1882"  gives  a  large  amount  of  infor- 
mation as  to  the  fish  which  swarm  round  the  Irish  coast.  Mr.  Brady 
reports  on  the  abundance  of  herring  and  other  fish  all  round  the  coast. 
Shoals  of  herring  "remained  off  nearly  the  entire  coast  of  Ireland 
from  August  till  December."  "Large  shoals  of  pilchards"  were  ob- 
served on  the  south  and  southwest  coasts.  Off  Dingle,  it  is  remarked, 
"the  supply  of  all  kinds  offish  is  practically  inexhaustible."  "Im- 
mense shoals  of  herrings  offLiscannor  and  Loop  Head  ;"  "  the  mack- 
erel is  always  on  this  coast,  and  can  be  captured  at  any  time  of  the 
year,  weather  permitting."  At  Belmullet,  "the  shoals  of  fish  off 
the  coast,  particularly  herring  and  mackerel,  are  sometimes  enormous." 
The  fishermen,  though  poor,  are  all  very  orderly  and  well  conducted. 
They  only  want  energy  and  industry. 


Help  for  Irish  Fisheries.  267 

Some  cry  for  more  loans ;  some  cry  for  more  har- 
bors. It  would  be  well  to  help  with  suitable  harbors, 
but  the  system  of  dependence  upon  government  loans 
is  pernicious.  The  Irish  ought  to  feel  that  the  very 
best  help  must  come  from  themselves.  This  is  the 
best  method  for  teaching  independence.  Look  at  the 
little  isle  of  Man.  The  fishermen  there  never  ask  for 
loans.  They  look  to  their  nets  and  their  boats  ;  they 
sail  for  Ireland,  catch  the  fish,  and  sell  them  to  the 
Irish  people.  With  them  industry  brings  capital,  and 
forms  the  fertile  seed  -  ground  of  further  increase  of 
boats  and  nets.  Surely  what  is  done  by  the  Manxmen, 
the  Cornishmen,  and  the  Cockenziemen,  might  be  done 
by  the  Irishmen.  The  difficulty  is  not  to  be  got  over 
by  lamenting  about  it,  or  by  staring  at  it,  but  by  grap- 
pling with  it,  and  overcoming  it.  It  is  deeds,  not  words, 
that  are  wanted.  Employment  for  the  mass  of  the 
people  must  spring  from  the  people  themselves.  Pro- 
vided there  is  security  for  life  and  property,  and  an 
absence  of  intimidation,  we  believe  that  capital  will 
become  invested  in  the  fishing  industry  of  Ireland;  and 
that  the  result  will  be  peace,  food,  and  prosperity. 

We  must  remember  that  it  is  only  of  comparatively 
late  years  that  England  and  Scotland  have  devoted  so 
much  attention  to  the  fishery  of  the  seas  surrounding 
our  island.  In  this  fact  there  is  consolation  and  hope 
for  Ireland.  At  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury Sir  Walter  Raleigh  laid  before  the  king  his  ob- 
servations concerning  the  trade  and  commerce  of  Eng- 
land, in  which  he  showed  that  the  Dutch  were  almost 
monopolizing  the  fishing-trade,  and  consequently  add- 
ing to  their  shipping,  commerce,  and  wealth.  "  Surely," 
he  says,  "the  stream  is  necessary  to  be  turned  to  the 
good  of  this  kingdom,  to  whose  sea-coasts  alone  God 
has  sent  us  these  great  blessings  and  immense  riches 
for  us  to  take  ;    and  that  every  nation  should  carry 


268  Industry  in  Ireland. 

away  out  of  this  kingdom  yearly  great  masses  of  mon- 
ey for  fish  taken  in  our  seas,  and  sold  again  by  them 
to  us,  must  needs  be  a  great  dishonor  to  our  nation, 
and  hinderance  to  this  realm." 

The  Hollanders  then  had  about  fifty  thousand  peo- 
ple employed  in  fishing  along  the  English  coast;  and 
their  industry  and  enterprise  gave  employment  to 
about  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  more,  "by  sea 
and  land,  to  make  provision,  to  dress  and  transport  the 
fish  they  take,  and  return  commodities;  whereby  they 
are  enabled  yearly  to  build  one  thousand  ships  and  ves- 
sels." The  prosperity  of  Amsterdam  was  then  so  great 
that  it  was  said  that  Amsterdam  was  "founded  on  her- 
ring-bones." Tobias  Gentleman  published  in  1614  his 
treatise  on  "  England's  Way  to  Win  Wealth,  and  to 
Employ  Ships  and  Marines,"  *  in  which  he  urged  the 
English  people  to  vie  with  the  Dutch  in  fishing  the 
seas,  and  thereby  to  give  abundant  employment,  as 
well  as  abundant  food,  to  the  poorer  people  of  the 
country. 

"Look,"  he  said,  "on  these  fellows  that  we  call  the 
plump  Hollanders  ;  behold  their  diligence  in  fishing, 
and  our  own  careless  negligence  !"  The  Dutch  not 
only  fished  along  the  coasts  near  Yarmouth,  but  their 
fishing  vessels  went  north  as  far  as  the  coasts  of  Shet- 
land. What  roused  Mr.  Gentleman's  indignation  the 
most  was,  that  the  Dutchmen  caught  the  fish  and  sold 
them  to  the  Yarmouth  herring  -  mongers  "for  ready 
gold,  so  that  it  amounteth  to  a  great  sum  of  money, 
which  money  doth  never  come  again  into  England." 
"  We  are  daily  scorned,"  he  says,  "  by  these  Holland- 
ers, for  being  so  negligent  of  our  Profit,  and  careless 
of  our  Fishing;  and  they  do  daily  flout  us  that  be  the 
poor  Fishermen  of  England,  to  our  Faces  at  Sea,  call- 

*  "  The  Harleian  Miscellany,"  vol.  iii.  pp.  378-391. 


Enterprise  of  the  Dutch.  269 

ing  to  us,  and  saying,  '  Ya  English,  ya  sail  or  oud  scone 
dragienf  which,  in  English,  is  this,  '  You  English,  we 
will  make  you  glad  to  wear  our  old  shoes  !' " 

Another  pamphlet,  to  a  similar  effect,  "The  Royal 
Fishing  Revived,"  *  was  published  fifty  years  later,  in 
which  it  was  set  forward  that  the  Dutch  "  have  not 
only  gained  to  themselves  almost  the  sole  fishing  in 
his  Majesty's  Seas;  but  principally  upon  this  Account 
have  very  near  beat  us  out  of  all  our  other  most  prof- 
itable Trades  in  all  Parts  of  the  World."  It  was  even 
proposed  to  compel  "  all  Sorts  of  begging  Persons  and 
all  other  poor  People,  all  People  condemned  for  less 
Crimes  than  Blood,"  as  well  as  "  all  Persons  in  Prison 
for  Debt,"  to  take  part  in  this  fishing  trade!  But  this 
was  not  the  true  way  to  force  the  traffic.  The  her- 
ring fishery  at  Yarmouth  and  along  the  coast  began  to 
make  gradual  progress  with  the  growth  of  wealth  and 
enterprise  throughout  the  country,  though  it  was  not 
until  1787 — less  than  a  hundred  years  ago — that  the 
Yarmouth  men  began  the  deep-sea  herring  fishery. 
Before  then  the  fishing  was  all  carried  on  along  shore 
in  little  cobles,  almost  within  sight  of  land.  The  native 
fishery  also  extended  northward,  along  the  east  coast 
of  Scotland  and  the  Orkney  and  Shetland  Isles,  until 
now  the  herring  fishery  of  Scotland  forms  one  of  the 
greatest  industries  in  the  United  Kingdom,  and  gives 
employment,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  close  upon  half 
a  million  of  people,  or  to  one  seventh  of  the  whole 
population  of  Scotland. 

Taking  these  facts  into  consideration,  therefore, 
there  is  no  reason  to  despair  of  seeing,  before  many 
years  have  elapsed,  a  large  development  of  the  fishing 
industry  of  Ireland.  We  may  yet  see  Gal  way  the 
Yarmouth,  Achill   the   Grimsby,  and   Killybegs   the 

*  "The  Harleian  Miscellany."  vol.  iii.  p.  392. 


270  Industry  in  Ireland. 

Wick  of  the  West.  Modern  society  in  Ireland,  as  ev- 
erywhere else,  can  only  be  transformed  through  the 
agency  of  labor,  industry,  and  commerce — inspired  by 
the  spirit  of  work,  and  maintained  by  the  accumula- 
tions of  capital.  The  first  end  of  all  labor  is  security 
— security  to  person,  possession,  and  property,  so  that 
all  may  enjoy  in  peace  the  fruits  of  their  industry. 
For  no  liberty,  no  freedom,  can  really  exist  which 
does  not  include  the  first  liberty  of  all — the  right  of 
public  and  private  safety. 

To  show  what  energy  and  industry  can  do  in  Ire- 
land, it  is  only  necessary  to  j)oint  to  Belfast,  one  of 
the  most  prosperous  and  enterprising  towns  in  the 
British  Islands.  The  land  is  the  same,  the  climate  is 
the  same,  and  the  laws  are  the  same,  as  those  which 
prevail  in  other  parts  of  Ireland.  Belfast  is  the  great 
centre  of  Irish  manufactures  and  commerce,  and  what 
she  has  been  able  to  do  might  be  done  elsewhere,  with 
the  same  amount  of  energy  and  enterprise.  But  it  is 
not  the  land,  the  climate,  and  the  laws  that  we  want. 
It  is  the  men  to  lead  and  direct,  and  the  men  to  follow 
with  anxious  and  persevering  industry.  It  is  always 
the  Man  society  wants. 

The  influence  of  Belfast  extends  far  out  into  the 
country.  As  you  approach  it  from  Sligo,  you  begin 
to  see  that  you  are  nearing  a  place  where  industry  has 
accumulated  capital,  and  where  it  has  been  invested  in 
cultivating  and  beautifying  the  land.  After  you  pass 
Enniskillen,  the  fields  become  more  highly  cultivated. 
The  drill-rows  are  more  regular;  the  hedges  are  clipped; 
the  weeds  no  longer  hide  the  crops,  as  they  sometimes 
do  in  the  far  west.  The  country  is  also  adorned  with 
copses,  woods,  and  avenues.  A  new  crop  begins  to 
appear  in  the  fields — a  crop  almost  peculiar  to  the 
neighborhood  of  Belfast.  It  is  a  plant  with  a  very 
slender,   erect,  green   stem,  which,  when   full-grown, 


The  Linen  Manufacture.  271 

branches  at  the  top  into  a  loose  corymb  of  blue  flow- 
ers. This  is  the  flax-plant,  the  cultivation  and  prepa- 
ration of  which  gives  employment  to  a  large  number 
of  people,  and  is  to  a  large  extent  the  foundation  of 
the  prosperity  of  Belfast. 

The  first  appearance  of  the  linen  industry  of  Ire- 
land, as  we  approach  Belfast  from  the  west,  is  ob- 
served at  Portadown.  Its  position  on  the  Barin,  with 
its  water-power,  has  enabled  this  town,  as  well  as  the 
other  places  on  the  river,  to  secure  and  maintain  their 
due  share  in  the  linen  manufacture.  Factories,  with 
their  long  chimneys,  begin  to  appear.  The  fields  are 
richly  cultivated,  and  a  general  air  of  well-being  per- 
vades the  district.  Lurgan  is  reached,  so  celebrated 
for  its  diapers,  and  the  fields  thereabout  are  used  as 
bleaching-greens.  Then  comes  Lisburn,  a  populous 
and  thriving  town,  the  inhabitants  of  which  are  mostly 
engaged  in  their  staple  trade,  the  manufacture  of  dam- 
asks. This  was,  really,  the  first  centre  of  the  linen 
trade.  Though  Lord  Strafford,  during  his  govern- 
ment of  Ireland,  encouraged  the  flax  industry  by  send- 
ing to  Holland  for  flax-seed,  and  inviting  Flemish  and 
French  artisans  to  settle  in  Ireland,  it  was  not  until 
the  Huguenots,  who  had  been  banished  from  France 
by  the  persecutions  of  Louis  XIV.,  settled  in  Ireland 
in  such  large  numbers  that  the  manufacture  became 
firmly  established.  The  Crommelins,  the  Goyers,  and 
the  Dupres  were  the  real  founders  of  this  great  branch 
of  industry.* 

*See  "The  Huguenots  in  England  and  Ireland."  A  Board  of 
Traders,  for  the  encouragement  and  promotion  of  the  hemp  and  flax 
manufacture  in  Ireland,  was  appointed  by  an  act  of  Parliament  at 
the  beginning  of  last  century  (6th  of  October,  1711),  and  the  year 
after  the  appointment  of  the  board  the  following  notice  was  placed  on 
the  records  of  the  institution  :  "Louis  Crommelin  and  the  Huguenot 
colony  have  been  greatly  instrumental  in  improving  and  propagating 


272  Industry  in  Ireland. 

As  the  traveller  approaches  Belfast,  groups  of  houses, 
factories,  and  works  of  various  kinds,  appear  closer  and 
closer;  long  chimneys  over  boilers  and  steam-engines, 
and  brick  buildings  three  and  four  stories  high;  large 
yards  full  of  workmen,  carts,  and  lorries;  and  at  length 
we  are  landed  in  the  midst  of  a  large  manufacturing 
town.  As  we  enter  the  streets,  everybody  seems  to  be 
alive.  What  struck  William  Hutton,  when  he  first  saw 
Birmingham,  might  be  said  of  Belfast:  "I  was  sur- 
prised at  the  place,  but  more  at  the  people.  They 
possessed  a  vivacity  I  had  never  before  beheld.  I  had 
been  among  dreamers,  but  now  I  saw  men  awake. 
Their  very  step  along  the  street  showed  alacrity. 
Every  man  seemed  to  know  what  he  was  about.  The 
town  was  large,  and  full  of  inhabitants,  and  these  in- 
habitants full  of  industry.  The  faces  of  other  men 
seemed  tinctured  with  an  idle  gloom,  but  here  with  a 
pleasing  alertness.  Their  appearance  was  strongly 
marked  with  the  modes  of  civil  life." 

Some  people  do  not  like  manufacturing  towns:  they 
prefer  old  castles  and  ruins.  They  will  find  plenty  of 
these  in  other  parts  of  Ireland.     But  to  found  indus- 

the  flaxen  manufacture  in  the  north  of  this  Kingdom,  and  the  perfec- 
tion to  which  the  same  is  brought  in  that  part  of  the  country  has  been 
greatly  owing  to  the  skill  and  industry  of  the  said  Crommelin."  In 
a  history  of  the  linen  trade,  published  at  Belfast,  it  is  said  that  "the 
dignity  which  that  enterprising  man  imparted  to  labor,  and  the  halo 
which  his  example  cast  around  physical  exertion,  had  the  best  effect  in 
raising  the  tone  of  popular  feeling,  as  well  among  the  patricians  as 
among  the  peasants  of  the  north  of  Ireland.  This  love  of  industry 
did  much  to  break  down  the  national  prejudice  in  favor  of  idleness, 
and  cast  doubts  on  the  social  orthodoxy  of  the  idea  then  so  popular 
with  the  squirearchy,  that  those  alone  who  were  able  to  live  without 
employment  had  any  rightful  claim  to  the  distinctive  title  of  gentle- 
man. ...  A  patrician  by  birth  and  a  merchant  by  profession,  Crom- 
melin proved,  by  his  own  life,  his  example,  and  his  enterprise,  that 
an  energetic  manufacturer  may,  at  the  same  time,  take  a  high  place 
in  the  conventional  world." 


Growth  of  Belfast.  273 

tries  that  give  employment  to  large  numbers  of  per- 
sons, and  enable  them  to  maintain  themselves  and 
families  upon  the  fruits  of  their  labor,  instead  of  liv- 
ing upon  poor-rates  levied  from  the  labors  of  others, 
or  who  are  forced,  by  want  of  employment,  to  banish 
themselves  from  their  own  country,  to  emigrate  and 
settle  among  strangers,  where  they  know  not  what  may 
become  of  them — is  a  most  honorable  and  important 
source  of  influence,  and  worthy  of  every  encourage- 
ment. Look  at  the  wonderfully  rapid  rise  of  Belfast, 
originating  in  the  enterprise  of  individuals,  and  devel- 
oped by  the  earnest  and  anxious  industry  of  the  inhab- 
itants of  Ulster! 

aGod  save  Ireland!"  By  all  means.  But  Ireland 
cannot  be  saved  without  the  help  of  the  people  who 
live  in  it.  God  endowed  men,  there  as  elsewhere,  with 
reason,  will,  and  physical  power,  and  it  is  by  patient 
industry  only  that  they  can  open  up  a  pathway  to  the 
enduring  prosperity  of  the  country.  There  is  no  Eden 
in  nature.  The  earth  might  have  continued  a  rude, 
uncultivated  wilderness,  but  for  human  energy,  power, 
and  industry.  These  enable  man  to  subdue  the  wil- 
derness, and  develop  the  potency  of  labor.  Possunt 
quia  credimt  posse.     They  must  conquer  who  will. 

Belfast  is  a  comparatively  modern  town.  It  has  no 
ancient  history.  About  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth 
century  it  was  little  better  than  a  fishing  village. 
There  was  a  castle,  and  a  ford  to  it  across  the  Lagan. 
A  chapel  was  built  at  the  ford,  at  which  hurried  prayers 
were  offered  up  for  those  who  were  about  to  cross 
the  currents  of  Lagan  Water.  In  1575  Sir  Henry  Syd- 
ney writes  to  the  Lords  of  the  Council:  "I  was  offered 
skirmish  by  MacNeill  Bryan  Ertaugh  at  my  passage 
over  the  water  at  Belfast,  which  I  caused  to  be  an- 
swered, and  passed  over  without  losse  of  man  or  horse; 
yet  by  reason  of  the  extraordinaire  Retorne  our  horses 

12* 


274:  Industry  in  Ireland. 

swamme  and  the  Footmen  in  the  passage  waded  very 
deep."  The  country  round  about  was  forest  land.  It 
was  so  thickly  wooded  that  it  was  a  common  saying 
that  one  might  walk  to  Lurgan  "on  the  tops  of  the 
trees." 

In  1612  Belfast  consisted  of  about  one  hundred  and 
twenty  houses,  built  of  mud  and  covered  with  thatch. 
The  whole  value  of  the  land  on  which  the  town  is  sit- 
uated is  said  to  have  been  worth  only  £5  in  fee  sim- 
ple.* "  Ulster,"  said  Sir  John  Davies,  "  is  a  very  des- 
ert or  wilderness;  the  inhabitants  thereof  having  for 
the  most  part  no  certain  habitation  in  any  towns  or 
villages."  In  1659  Belfast  contained  only  six  hundred 
inhabitants  ;  Carrickfergus  was  more  important,  and 
had  one  thousand  three  hundred  and  twelve  inhabit- 
ants. But  about  1660  the  Long  Bridge  over  the  La- 
gan was  built,  and  prosperity  began  to  dawn  upon  the 
little  town.  It  was  situated  at  the  head  of  a  naviga- 
ble lough,  and  formed  an  outlet  for  the  manufacturing 
products  of  the  inland  country.  Ships  of  any  burden, 
however,  could  not  come  near  the  town.  The  cargoes, 
down  even  to  a  recent  date,  had  to  be  discharged  into 
lighters  at  Garmoyle.  Streams  of  water  made  their 
way  to  the  lough  through  the  mud-banks,  and  a  rivu- 
let ran  through  what  is  now  known  as  the  High  Street. 

The  population  gradually  increased.  In  IV 88  Bel- 
fast had  twelve  thousand  inhabitants.  But  it  was  not 
until  after  the  union  with  Great  Britain  that  the  town 
made  so  great  a  stride.  At  the  beginning  of  the  pres- 
ent century  it  had  about  twenty  thousand  inhabitants. 
At  every  successive  census  the  progress  made  was  ex- 
traordinary, until  now  the  population  of  Belfast  amounts 
to  over  two  hundred  and  twenty-five  thousand.  There 
is  scarcely  an  instance  of  so  large  a  rate  of  increase  in 

*  Binns,  "  History  of  Belfast,"  p.  78. 


Ship-building  at  Belfast.  275 

the  British  Islands,  except  in  the  exceptional  case  of  Mid- 
cllesborough,  which  was  the  result  of  the  opening  out 
of  the  Stockton  and  Darlington  Railway,  and  the  dis- 
covery of  ironstone  in  the  hills  of  Cleveland  in  York- 
shire. Dundee  and  Barrow  are  supposed  to  present 
the  next  most  rapid  increases  of  population. 

The  increase  of  shipping  has  also  been  equally  great. 
Ships  from  other  ports  frequented  the  lough  for  pur- 
poses of  trade;  but  in  course  of  time  the  Belfast  mer- 
chants supplied  themselves  with  ships  of  their  own. 
In  1791  one  William  Ritchie,  a  sturdy  North  Briton, 
brought  with  him  from  Glasgow  ten  men  and  a  quan- 
tity of  ship-building  materials.  He  greatly  increased 
the  number  of  his  workmen,  and  proceeded  to  build  a 
few  sloops.  He  reclaimed  some  land  from  the  sea, 
and  made  a  shipyard  and  graving  dock  on  what  Avas 
known  as  Corporation  Ground.  In  November,  1800, 
the  new  graving  dock,  near  the  bridge,  was  opened  for 
the  reception  of  vessels.  It  was  capable  of  receiving 
three  vessels  of  two  hundred  tons  each!  In  1807  a  ves- 
sel of  four  hundred  tons'  burden  was  launched  from 
Mr.  Ritchie's  shipyard,  when  a  great  crowd  of  people 
assembled  to  witness  the  launching  of  "  so  large  a 
ship " — far  more  than  now  assemble  to  see  a  three 
thousand- tonner  of  the  White  Star  Line  leave  the 
slips  and  enter  the  water. 

The  ship-building  trade  has  been  one  of  the  most 
rapidly  developed,  especially  of  late  years.  In  1805 
the  number  of  vessels  frequenting  the  port  was  eight 
hundred  and  forty,  whereas  in  1883  the  number  had 
been  increased  to  seven  thousand  five  hundred  and 
eight,  with  about  a  million  and  a  half  of  tonnage; 
while  the  gross  value  of  the  exports  from  Belfast  ex- 
ceeded twenty  millions  sterling  annually.  In  1819  the 
first  steamboat  of  one  hundred  tons  was  used  to  tug 
the  vessels  up  the  windings  of  the  lough,  which  it  did 


276  Industry  in  Ireland. 

at  the  rate  of  three  miles  an  hour,  to  the  astonishment 
of  everybody.  Seven  years  later  the  steamboat  Rob 
Roy  was  put  on  between  Glasgow  and  Belfast.  But 
all  these  vessels  had  been  built  in  Scotland.  It  was 
not  until  1826  that  the  first  steamboat,  the  Chieftain, 
was  built  in  Belfast,  by  the  same  William  Ritchie. 
Then,  in  1838,  the  first  iron  boat  was  built  in  the  La- 
gan foundry,  by  Messrs.  Coates  &  Young,  though  it 
was  but  a  mere  cockle-shell  compared  with  the  mighty 
ocean  steamers  which  are  now  regularly  launched  from 
Queen's  Island.  In  the  year  1883  the  largest  ship- 
building firm  in  the  town  launched  thirteen  vessels,  of 
over  thirty  thousand  tons  gross,  while  two  other  firms 
launched  twelve  ships,  of  about  ten  thousand  tons 
gross. 

I  do  not  propose  to  enter  into  details  respecting  the 
progress  of  the  trades  of  Belfast.  The  most  important 
is  the  spinning  of  fine  linen  yarn,  which  is  for  the  most 
part  concentrated  in  that  totvn,  over  twenty-five  mill- 
ions of  pounds  weight  being  exported  annually.  Tow- 
ards the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  linen  man- 
ufacture had  made  but  little  progress.  In  1680  all 
Ireland  did  not  export  more  than  £6000  worth  annu- 
ally. Drogheda  was  then  of  greater  importance  than 
Belfast.  But,  with  the  settlement  of  the  persecuted 
Huguenots  in  Ulster,  and  especially  through  the  ener- 
getic labors  of  Crommelin,  Goyer,  and  others,  the 
growth  of  flax  was  sedulously  cultivated,  and  its  man- 
ufacture into  linen  of  all  sorts  became  an  important 
branch  of  Irish  industry.  In  the  course  of  about  fifty 
years  the  exports  of  linen  fabrics  increased  to  the  value 
of  over  £600,000  per  annum. 

It  was  still,  however,  a  handicraft  manufacture,  and 
done  for  the  most  part  at  home.  Flax  was  spun  and 
yarn  was  woven  by  hand.  Eventually  machinery  was 
employed,  and   the  turn-out  became  proportionately 


Industries  of  Belfast.  277 

large  and  valuable.  It  would  not  be  possible  for  hand- 
labor  to  supply  the  amount  of  linen  now  turned  out  by 
the  aid  of  machinery.  It  would  require  three  times 
the  entire  population  of  Ireland  to  spin  and  weave,  by 
the  old  spinning-wheel  and  hand-loom  methods,  the 
amount  of  linen  and  cloth  now  annually  manufactured 
by  the  operatives  of  Belfast  alone.  There  are  now 
forty  large  spinning-mills  in  Belfast  and  the  neighbor- 
hood alone,  giving  employment  to  a  large  number  of 
working  people.* 

In  the  course  of  my  visit  to  Belfast,  I  inspected  the 
works  of  the  York  Street  flax-spinning  mill,  founded 
in  1830,  by  the  Messrs.  Mulholland,  which  now  give 
employment,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  many  thousands 
of  persons.  I  visited,  also,  with  my  young  Italian 
friend,  the  admirable  printing  establishment  of  Mar- 
cus Ward  &  Co.,  the  works  of  the  Belfast  Rope-work 
Company,  and  the  ship-building  works  of  Harland  & 
Wolff.  There  we  passed  through  the  roar  of  the  iron 
forge,  the  clang  of  the  Nasmyth  hammer,  and  the  in- 
termittent glare  of  the  furnaces,  all  telling  of  the  novel 
appliances  of  modern  ship-building,  and  the  power  of 
the  modern  steam-engine.  I  prefer  to  give  a  brief  ac- 
count of  this  latter  undertaking,  as  it  exhibits  one  of 
the  newest  and  most  important  industries  of  Belfast. 
It  also  shows,  on  the  part  of  its  proprietors,  a  brave  en- 
counter with  difficulties,  and  sets  before  the  friends  of 
Ireland  the  truest  and  surest  method  of  not  only  giv- 

*  From  the  "  Irish  Manufacturers'  Almanac  "  for  1883  I  learn  that 
nearly  one  third  of  the  spindles  used  in  Europe  in  the  linen  trade,  and 
more  than  one  fourth  of  the  power-looms,  belong  to  Ireland,  that  "  the 
Irish  linen  and  associated  trades  at  present  give  employment  to  one 
hundred  and  seventy-six  thousand  three  hundred  and  three  persons; 
and  it  is  estimated  that  the  capital  sunk  in  spinning  and  weaving 
factories,  and  the  business  incidental  thereto,  is  about  £100,000,000, 
and  of  that  sum  £37,000,000  is  credited  to  Belfast  alone." 


278  Industry  in  Ireland. 

ing  employment 'to  its  people,  but  of  building  up  on 
the  surest  foundation  the  prosperity  of  the  country. 

The  first  occasion  on  which  I  visited  Belfast — the 
reader  will  excuse  the  introduction  of  myself — was  in 
1840,  about  forty-four  years  ago.  I  went  thither  on 
the  invitation  of  the  late  William  Sharman  Crawford^ 
Esq.,  M.P.,  the  first  prominent  advocate  of  tenant- 
right,  to  attend  a  public  meeting  of  the  Ulster  Asso- 
ciation, and  to  spend  a  few  days  with  him  at  his  resi- 
dence at  Crawfordsburn,  near  Bangor.  Belfast  was 
then  a  town  of  comparatively  little  importance,  though 
it  had  already  made  a  fair  start  in  commerce  and 
industry.  As  our  steamer  approached  the  head  of 
the  lough,  a  large  number  of  laborers  were  observed, 
with  barrows,  picks,  and  spades,  scooping  out  and 
wheeling  up  the  slob  and  mud  of  the  estuary,  for  the 
purpose  of  forming  what  is  now  known  as  Queen's 
Island,  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  River  Lagan.  The 
work  was  conducted  by  William  Dargan,  the  famous 
Irish  contractor;  and  its  object  was  to  make  a  straight 
artificial  outlet — the  Victoria  Channel — by  means  of 
which  vessels  drawing  twenty -three  feet  of  water 
might  reach  the  port  of  Belfast.  Before  then,  the 
course  of  the  Lagan  waa  tortuous,  and  difficult  of  nav- 
igation ;  but  by  the  straight  cut,  which  was  completed 
in  184G,  and  afterwards  extended  farther  seawards, 
ships  of  large  burden  were  enabled  to  reach  the  quays, 
which  extend  for  about  a  mile  below  Queen's  Bridge, 
on  both  sides  of  the  river. 

It  was  a  saying  of  honest  William  Dargan,  that 
"  when  a  thing  is  put  anyway  right  at  all,  it  takes  a 
vast  deal  of  mismanagement  to  make  it  go  wrong." 
He  had  another  curious  saying  about  "  the  calf  eating 
the  cow's  belly,"  which,  he  said,  was  not  right,  "at 
all,  at  all."  Belfast  illustrated  his  proverbial  remarks. 
That  the  cutting  of  the  Victoria  Channel  was  doing 


Commerce  of  Belfast.  279 

the  "  right  thing  "  for  Belfast  was  clear  from  the  con- 
stantly increasing  traffic  of  the  port.  In  course  of 
time  several  extensive  docks  and  tidal  basins  were 
added,  while  provision  was  made,  in  laying  out  the 
reclaimed  land  at  the  entrance  of  the  estuary,  for  their 
future  extension  and  enlargement.  The  town  of  Bel- 
fast was  by  these  means  gradually  placed  in  imme- 
diate connection,  by  sea,  with  the  principal  western 
ports  of  England  and  Scotland,  steamships  of  large 
burden  now  leaving  it  daily  for  Liverpool,  Glasgow, 
Fleetwood,  Barrow,  and  Ardrossan.  The  ships  enter- 
ing the  port  of  Belfast  in  1883  were  seven  thousand 
five  hundred  and  eight,  of  one  million  five  hundred 
and  twenty-six  thousand  five  hundred  and  thirty-five 
tons  ;  they  had  been  more  than  doubled  in  fifteen 
years.  The  town  has  risen  from  nothing,  to  exhibit  a 
customs  revenue,  in  1883,  of  £608,'781,  infinitely  great- 
er than  that  of  Leith,  the  port  of  Edinburgh,  or  of 
Hull,  the  chief  port  of  Yorkshire.  The  population  has 
also  largely  increased.  When  I  visited  Belfast,  in 
1840,  the  town  contained  seventy-five  thousand  inhab- 
itants. They  are  now  over  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  thousand,  or  more  than  trebled,  Belfast  being  the 
tenth  town,  in  point  of  population,  in  the  United  King- 
dom. 

The  spirit  and  enterprise  of  the  people  are  illustrated 
by  the  variety  of  their  occupations.  They  do  not  con- 
fine themselves  to  one  branch  of  business,  but  their 
energies  overflow  into  nearly  every  department  of  in- 
dustry. Their  linen  manufacture  is  of  world  -  wide 
fame,  but  much  less  known  are  their  more  recent  en- 
terprises. The  production  of  aerated  waters,  for  in- 
stance, is  something  extraordinary.  In  1882  the  manu- 
facturers shipped  off  fifty-three  thousand  one  hundred 
and  sixty-three  packages,  and  twenty-four  thousand 
two  hundred  and  sixty-three  hundredweights  of  aerat- 


280  Industry  in  Ireland. 

ed  waters  to  England,  Scotland,  Australia,  New  Zea- 
land, and  other  countries.  Although  Ireland  produces 
no  wrought  iron,  though  it  contains  plenty  of  iron- 
stone— and  Belfast  has  to  import  all  the  iron  which  it 
consumes  —  yet  one  engineering  firm  alone,  that  of 
Combe,  Barbour,  &  Combe  —  employs  one  thousand 
five  hundred  highly  paid  mechanics,  and  ships  off  their 
own  machinery  to  all  parts  of  the  world.  The  printing 
establishment  of  Marcus  Ward  &  Co.  employs  over  one 
thousand  highly  skilled  and  ingenious  persons,  and 
extends  the  influence  of  learning  and  literature  into 
all  civilized  countries.  We  might  add  the  various 
manufactures  of  roofing-felt  (of  which  there  are  five), 
of  ropes,  of  stoves,  of  stable-fittings,  of  nails,  of  starch, 
of  machinery,  all  of  which  have  earned  a  world-wide 
reputation. 

We  prefer,  however,  to  give  an  account  of  the  last 
new  industry  of  Belfast,  that  of  shipping  and  ship- 
building. Although,  as  we  have  said,  Belfast  imports 
from  Scotland  and  England  all  its  iron  and  all  its  coal,* 
it  nevertheless,  by  the  skill  and  strength  of  its  men, 
sends  out  some  of  the  finest  and  largest  steamships 
that  navigate  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific.  It  all  comes 
from  the  power  of  individuality,  and  furnishes  a  splen- 
did example  for  Dublin,  Cork,  Waterford,  and  Limer- 
ick, each  of  which  is  provided  by  nature  with  magnif- 
icent harbors,  with  fewer  of  those  difficulties  of  access 
which  Belfast  has  triumphed  over,  and  each  of  which 
might  be  the  centre  of  great  industrial  enterprises, 
provided  only  there  were  patriotic  men  willing  to  em- 
bark their  capital,  perfect  protection  for  the  property 
invested,  and  men  willing  to  work  rather  than  to  strike. 

It  was  not  until  the  year  1853  that  the  Queen's  Isl- 

*  The  importation  of  coal  in  1883  amounted  to  over  seven  hundred 
thousand  tons. 


Harland  &  Wolff.  2S1 

and — raked  out  of  the  mud  of  the  slob-land — was  first 
used  for  ship-building  purposes.  Robert  Hickson  & 
Co.  then  commenced  operations  by  laying  down  the 
Mary  JStenhoiise,  a  wooden  sailing-ship  of  one  thou- 
sand two  hundred  and  eighty-nine  tons'  register,  and 
the  vessel  was  launched  in  the  following  year.  The 
operations  of  the  firm  were  continued  until  the  year 
1859,  when  the  ship-building  establishments  on  Queen's 
Island  were  acquired  by  Mr.  E.  J.  Harland  (afterwards 
Harland  &  Wolff),  since  which  time  the  development 
of  this  great  branch  of  industry  in  Belfast  has  been 
rapid  and  complete. 

From  the  history  of  this  firm,  it  will  be  found  that 
energy  is  the  most  profitable  of  all  merchandise,  and 
that  the  fruit  of  active  work  is  the  sweetest  of  all 
fruits.  Harland  &  Wolff  are  the  true  Watt  &  Boul- 
ton  of  Belfast.  At  the  beginning  of  their  great  en- 
terprise the  works  occupied  about  four  acres  of  land; 
they  now  occupy  over  thirty-six  acres.  The  firm  has 
imported  not  less  than  two  hundred  thousand  tons  of 
iron,  which  have  been  converted  by  skill  and  labor 
into  one  hundred  and  sixty-eight  ships  of  two  hundred 
and  fifty- three  thousand  total  tonnage.  These  ships, 
if  laid  close  together,  would  measure  nearly  eight 
miles  in  length. 

The  advantage  to  the  wage-earning  class  can  only 
be  shortly  stated.  Not  less  than  thirty-four  per  cent, 
is  paid  in  labor  on  the  cost  of  the  ships  turned  out. 
The  number  of  persons  employed  in  the  works  is 
three  thousand  nine  hundred  and  twenty  ;  and  the 
weekly  wages  paid  to  them  is  £4000,  or  over  £200,000 
annually.  Since  the  commencement  of  the  undertak- 
ing, about  two  millions  sterling  have  been  paid  in 
wages.  All  this  goes  towards  the  support  of  the  vari- 
ous industries  of  the  place.  That  the  working-classes 
of  Belfast  are  thrifty  and  frugal  may  be  inferred  from 


282  Industry  in  Ireland. 

the  fact  that,  at  the  end  of  1882,  they  held  deposits  in 
the  Savings  Bank  to  the  amount  of  £230,289,  besides 
£158,064  in  the  Post-office  Savings  Banks.*  Nearly 
all  the  better  class  of  working  people  of  the  town  live 
in  separate  dwellings,  either  rented  or  their  own  prop- 
erty. There  are  ten  building  societies  in  Belfast,  in 
which  industrious  people  may  store  their  earnings,  and 
in  course  of  time  either  buy  or  build  their  own  houses. 

The  example  of  energetic,  active  men  always  spreads. 
Belfast  contains  two  other  ship-building  yards,  both  the 
outcome  of  Harland  &  Wolff's  enterprise — those  of 
Messrs.  Macilwaine  &  Lewis,  employing  about  four 
hundred  men,  and  of  Messrs.  Workman  &  Clarke,  em- 
ploying about  a  thousand.  The  heads  of  both  these 
firms  were  trained  in  the  parent  ship-building  works 
of  Belfast.  There  is  no  feeling  of  rivalry  between  the 
firms,  but  all  work  together  for  the  good  of  the  town. 

In  "Plutarch's  Lives  "we  are  told  that  Themistocles 
said  on  one  occasion,  "  'Tis  true  that  I  have  never 
learned  how  to  tune  a  harp,  or  play  upon  a  lute,  but  I 
know  how  to  raise  a  small  and  inconsiderable  city  to 
glory  and  greatness."  So  might  it  be  said  of  Harland 
&  Wolff.  They  have  given  Belfast  not  only  a  potency 
for  good,  but  a  world-wide  reputation.  Their  energies 
overflow.  Mr.  Harland  is  the  active  and  ever-prudent 
chairman  of  the  most  important  of  the  local  boards, 


*  "We  are  indebted  to  the  obliging  kindness  of  the  Right  Honorable 
Mr.  Fawcett,  Postmaster-general,  for  this  return :  The  total  number 
of  depositors  in  the  Post-office  Savings  Banks  in  the  parliamentary 
borough  of  Belfast  is  ten  thousand  eight  hundred  and  twenty-seven, 
and  the  amount  of  their  deposits,  including  the  interest  standing  to 
their  credit,  on  the  31st  of  December,  1882,  was  £L"8,064  0s.  Id. 

An  important  item  in  the  savings  of  Belfast,  not  included  in  the 
above  returns,  consists  in  the  amounts  of  deposits  made  with  the  vari- 
ous limited  companies,  as  well  as  with  the  thriving  building  societies 
in  the  town  and  neighborhood. 


Belfast  Rope-work  Company. 


the  Harbor  Trust  of  Belfast,  and  exerts  himself  to 
promote  the  extension  of  the  harbor  facilities  of  the 
port  as  if  the  benefits  were  to  be  exclusively  his,  while 
Mr.  Wolff  is  the  chairman  of  one  of  the  latest-born  in- 
dustries of  the  place,  the  Belfast  Rope- work  Company, 
which  already  gives  employment  to  over  six  hundred 
persons. 

This  last-mentioned  industry  is  only  about  six  years 
old.  The  works  occupy  over  seven  acres  of  ground, 
more  than  six  acres  of  which  are  under  roofing.  Al- 
though the  whole  of  the  raw  material  is  imported  from 
abroad — from  Russia,  the  Philippine  Islands,  ISTew  Zea- 
land, and  Central  America — it  is  exported  again  in  a 
manufactured  state  to  all  parts  of  the  world. 

Such  is  the  contagion  of  example,  and  such  the  ever- 
branching  industries  with  which  men  of  enterprise  and 
industry  can  enrich  and  bless  their  country.  The  fol- 
lowing brief  memoir  of  the  career  of  Mr.  Harlan d  has 
been  furnished  at  my  solicitation,  and  I  think  that  it 
will  be  found  full  of  interest  as  well  as  instruction. 


CHAPTER  XL 

SHIP-BUILDING  IN  BELFAST  — ITS  ORIGIN  AND  PROG- 
RESS. 

BY    E.   J.  HARLAXD,   ENGINEER    AND    SHIP-BUILDER. 

"  The  useful  arts  are  but  reproductions  or  new  combinations,  by  the 
art  of  man,  of  the  same  natural  benefactors.  He  no  longer  waits  for 
favoring  gales,  but  by  means  of  steam  he  realizes  the  fable  of  iEolus's 
bag,  and  carries  the  two-and-thirty  winds  in  the  boiler  of  his  boat." — 
Emerson. 

"The  most  exquisite  and  the  most  expensive  machinery  is  brought 
into  play  where  operations  on  the  most  common  materials  are  to  be 
performed,  because  these  are  executed  on  the  widest  scale.  This  is 
the  meaning  of  the  vast  and  astonishing  prevalence  of  machine  work 
in  this  country ;  that  the  machine,  with  its  million  fingers,  works  for 
millions  of  purchasers,  while  in  remote  countries,  where  magnificence 
and  savagery  stand  side  by  side,  tens  of  thousands  work  for  one. 
There  Art  labors  for  the  rich  alone ;  here  she  works  for  the  poor  no 
less.  There  the  multitude  produce  only  to  give  splendor  and  grace 
to  the  despot  or  the  warrior,  whose  slaves  they  are,  and  whom  they 
enrich  ;  here  the  man  who  is  powerful  in  the  weapons  of  peace,  capi- 
tal and  machinery,  uses  them  to  give  comfort  and  enjoyment  to  the 
public,  whose  servant  he  is,  and  thus  becomes  rich  while  he  enriches 
others  with  his  goods."— William  Whewell,  D.D. 

I  was  born  at  Scarborough,  in  May,  1831,  the  sixth 
of  a  family  of  eight.  My  father  was  a  native  of  Rose- 
dale,  half-way  between  Whitby  and  Pickering  :  his 
nurse  was  the  sister  of  Captain  Scoresby,  celebrated 
as  an  Arctic  explorer.  Arrived  at  manhood,  he  studied 
medicine,  graduated  at  Edinburgh,  and  practised  in 
Scarborough  until  nearly  his  death,  in  1866.  He  was 
thrice  mayor,  and  a  justice  of  the  peace  for  the  bor- 
ough.     Dr.  Harland   was   a  man  of  much  force   of 


Dr.  Harland  of  Scarborough.  285 

character,  and  displayed  great  originality  in  the  treat- 
ment of  disease.  Besides  exercising  skill  in  his  pro- 
fession, he  had  a  great  love  for  mechanical  pursuits. 
He  spent  his  leisure  time  in  inventions  of  many  sorts; 
and,  in  conjunction  with  the  late  Sir  George  Cay  ley, 
of  Brompton,  he  kept  an  excellent  mechanic  constantly 
at  work. 

In  1827  he  invented  and  patented  a  steam- carriage 
for  running  on  common  roads.  Before  the  adoption 
of  railways  the  old  stage-coaches  were  found  slow,  and 
insufficient  for  the  traffic.  A  working  model  of  the 
steam-coach  was  perfected,  embracing  a  multitubular 
boiler  for  quickly  raising  high-pressure  steam,  with  a 
revolving  surface-condenser  for  reducing  the  steam  to 
water  again,  by  means  of  its  exposure  to  the  cold 
draught  of  the  atmosphere  through  the  interstices  of 
extremely  thin  laminations  of  copper  plates.  The  en- 
tire machinery,  placed  under  the  bottom  of  the  cai*- 
riage,  was  borne  on  springs,  the  whole  being  of  an 
elegant  form.  This  model  steam-carriage  ascended 
with  perfect  ease  the  steepest  roads.  Its  success  was 
so  complete  that  Dr.  Harland  designed  a  full-sized 
carriage;  but  the  demands  upon  his  professional  skill 
were  so  great  that  he  was  prevented  going  further 
than  constructing  the  pair  of  engines,  the  wheels,  and 
a  part  of  the  boiler,  all  of  which  remnants  I  still  pre- 
serve, as  valuable  links  in  the  progress  of  steam  loco- 
motion. 

Other  branches  of  practical  science — such  as  elec- 
tricity, magnetism,  and  chemical  cultivation  of  the  soil 
— received  a  share  of  his  attention.  He  predicted  that 
three  or  four  powerful  electric  lamps  would  yet  light 
a  whole  city.  He  was  also  convinced  of  the  feasibility 
of  an  electric  cable  to  New  York,  and  calculated  the 
probable  cost.  As  an  example  to  the  neighborhood, 
he  successfully  cultivated  a  tract  of  moorland,  and 


286  Ship-building  in  Belfast. 

overcame  difficulties  which  before  then  were  thought 
insurmountable. 

When  passing  through  Newcastle,  while  still  a  young 
man,  on  one  of  his  journeys  to  the  university  at  Edin- 
burgh, and  being  desirous  of  witnessing  the  operations 
in  a  coal-mine,  a  friend  recommended  him  to  visit  Kil- 
lingworth  pit,  where  he  would  find  one  George  Ste- 
phenson, a  most  intelligent  workman,  in  charge.  My 
father  was  introduced  to  Mr.  Stephenson  accordingly, 
and,  after  rambling  over  the  underground  workings, 
and  observing  the  pumping  and  winding  engines  in 
full  operation,  a  friendship  was  made,  which  after- 
wards proved  of  the  greatest  service  to  myself,  by  fa- 
cilitating my  being  placed  as  a  pupil  at  the  great  en- 
gineering works  of  Messrs.  Robert  Stephenson  &  Co., 
at  Newcastle. 

My  mother  was  the  daughter  of  Gawan  Pierson,  a 
landed  proprietor  of  Goathland,  near  Rosedale.  She, 
too,  was  surprisingly  mechanical  in  her  tastes,  and  as- 
sisted my  father  in  preparing  many  of  his  plans,  be- 
sides attaining  considerable  proficiency  in  drawing, 
painting,  and  modelling  in  wax.  Toys  in  those  days 
were  poor,  as  well  as  very  expensive  to  purchase.  But 
the  nursery  soon  became  a  little  workshop,  under  her 
directions,  and  the  boys  were  usually  engaged,  one  in 
making  a  cart,  another  in  carving  out  a  horse,  and  a 
third  in  cutting  out  a  boat,  while  the  girls  were  mak- 
ing harness,  or  sewing  sails,  or  cutting  out  and  making 
perfect  dresses  for  their  dolls,  whose  houses  were  com- 
pletely furnished  with  everything,  from  the  kitchen  to 
the  attic,  all  made  at  home. 

It  was  in  a  house  of  such  industry  and  mechanism 
that  I  was  brought  up.  As  a  youth,  I  was  slow  at  my 
lessons,  preferring  to  watch  and  assist  workmen  when 
I  had  an  opportunity  of  doing  so,  even  with  the  cer- 
tainty of  having  a  thrashing  from  the  schoolmaster  for 


Model  Yacht-building.  '287 

my  neglect.  Thus  I  got  to  know  every  workshop  and 
every  workman  in  the  town.  At  any  rate,  I  picked  up 
a  smattering  of  a  variety  of  trades  which  afterwards 
proved  of  the  greatest  use  to  me.  The  chief  of  these 
was  wooden  ship-building,  a  branch  of  industry  then 
extensively  carried  on  by  Messrs.  William  &  Robert 
Tinclall,  the  former  of  whom  resided  in  London  ;  he 
was  one  of  the  half-dozen  great  ship-builders  and  own- 
ers who  founded  "Lloyd's."  Splendid  East-Indiamen, 
of  some  one  thousand  tons  burden,  were  then  built  at 
Scarborough,  and  scarcely  a  timber  was  moulded,  a 
plank  bent,  a  spar  lined  off,  or  launching  ship-ways  laid 
without  my  being  present  to  witness  them.  And  thus, 
in  course  of  time,  I  was  able  to  make  for  myself  the 
neatest  and  fastest  of  model  yachts. 

At  that  time  I  attended  the  grammar-school.  Of 
the  rudiments  taught,  I  was  fondest  of  drawing,  ge- 
ometry, and  Euclid.  Indeed,  I  went  twice  through  the 
first  two  books  of  the  latter  before  I  was  twelve  years 
old.  At  this  age  I  was  sent  to  the  Edinburgh  Acade- 
my, my  eldest  brother,  William,  being  then  a  medical 
student  at  the  university.  I  remained  at  Edinburgh 
two  years.  My  early  progress  in  mathematics  would 
have  been  lost  in  the  classical  training  which  was  then 
insisted  upon  at  the  academy  but  for  my  brother,  who 
was  not  only  a  good  mathematician,  but  an  excellent 
mechanic.  He  took  care  to  carry  on  my  instruction  in 
that  branch  of  knowledge,  as  well  as  to  teach  me  to 
make  models  of  machines  and  buildings,  in  which  he 
was  himself  proficient.  I  remember,  in  one  of  my 
journeys  to  Edinburgh,  by  coach  from  Darlington, 
that  a  gentleman  expressed  his  wonder  what  a  screw 
propeller  could  be  like;  for  the  screw,  as  a  method  of 
propulsion,  was  then  being  introduced.  I  pointed  out 
to  him  the  patent  tail  of  a  windmill  by  the  roadside, 
and  said,  "  It  is  just  like  that!" 


288  /Ship-building  in  Belfast. 

In  1844  my  mother  died  ;  and  shortly  after,  my 
brother  having  become  M.D.,  and  obtained  a  prize 
gold  medal,  we  returned  to  Scarborough.  It  was  in- 
tended that  he  should  assist  my  father,  but  he  pre- 
ferred going  abroad  for  a  few  years.  I  may  men- 
tion further,  with  relation  to  him,  that,  after  many 
years  of  scientific  research  and  professional  practice, 
he  died  at  Hong  Kong  in  1858,  when  a  public  monu- 
ment was  erected  to  his  memory  in  what  is  known  as 
the  "  Happy  Valley." 

I  remained  for  a  short  time  under  the  tuition  of  my 
old  master.  But,  as  the  time  was  rapidly  approaching 
when  I,  too,  must  determine  what  I  was  "  to  be  "  in 
life,  I  had  no  hesitation  in  deciding  to  be  an  engineer, 
though  my  father  wished  me  to  be  a  barrister.  But  I 
kept  constant  to  my  resolution,  and  eventually  he  suc- 
ceeded, through  his  early  acquaintance  with  George 
Stephenson,  in  gaining  for  me  an  entrance  to  the  en- 
gineering works  of  Robert  Stephenson  &  Co.,  at  New- 
castle-upon-Tyne. I  started  there  as  a  pupil  on  my 
fifteenth  birthday,  for  an  apprenticeship  of  five  years. 
I  was  to  spend  the  first  four  years  in  the  various  work- 
shops, and  the  last  year  in  the  drawing-office. 

I  was  now  in  my  element.  The  working-hours,  it  is 
true,  were  very  long,  being  from  six  in  the  morning  un- 
til quarter-past  eight  at  night,  excepting  on  Saturday, 
when  we  knocked-off  at  four.  However,  all  this  gave 
me  so  much  the  more  experience,  and,  taking  advan- 
tage of  it,  I  found  that,  when  I  had  reached  the  age  of 
eighteen,  I  was  intrusted  with  the  full  charge  of  erect- 
ing one  side  of  a  locomotive.  I  had  to  accomplish  the 
same  amount  of  work  as  my  mate  on  the  other  side, 
one  Murray  Playf air,  a  powerful,  hard-working  Scotch- 
man. My  strength  and  endurance  were  sometimes 
taxed  to  the  utmost,  and  required  the  intervals  of  my 
labor  to  be  spent  in  merely  eating  and  sleeping. 


Design  a  Model  Lifeboat.  289 

I  afterwards  went  through  the  machine-shops.  I 
was  fortunate  enough  to  get  charge  of  the  best  screw- 
cutting  and  brass-turning  lathe  in  the  shop,  the  for- 
mer occupant,  Jack  Singleton,  having  just  been  pro- 
moted to  a  foreman's  berth  at  the  Messrs.  Armstrong's 
factory.  He  afterwards  became  superintendent  of  all 
the  hydraulic  machinery  of  the  Mersey  Dock  Trust  at 
Liverpool.  After  my  four  years  had  been  completed 
I  went  into  the  drawing-office,  to  which  I  had  looked 
forward  with  pleasure;  and,  having  before  practised 
lineal  as  well  as  free-hand  drawing,  I  soon  succeeded 
in  getting  good  and  difficult  designs  to  work  out,  and 
eventually  finished  drawings  of  the  engines.  Indeed, 
on  visiting  the  works  many  years  after,  one  of  these 
drawings  was  shown  to  me  as  a  "  specimen,"  the  per- 
son exhibiting  it  not  knowing  that  it  was  my  own 
work. 

In  the  course  of  my  occasional  visits  to  Scarborough 
my  attention  was  drawn  to  the  imperfect  design  of  the 
lifeboats  of  the  period,  the  frequent  shipwrecks  along 
the  coast  indicating  the  necessity  for  their  improve- 
ment. After  considerable  deliberation,  I  matured  a 
plan  for  a  metal  lifeboat,  of  a  cylindrico-conical  or 
chrysalis  form,  to  be  propelled  by  a  screw  at  each  end, 
turned  by  sixteen  men  inside,  seated  on  water-ballast 
tanks,  sufficient  room  being  left  at  the  ends  inside  for 
the  accommodation  of  ten  or  twelve  shipwrecked  per- 
sons, while  a  mate,  near  the  bow,  and  the  captain,  near 
the  stern,  in  charge  of  the  rudder,  were  stationed  in 
recesses  in  the  deck  about  three  feet  deep.  The  whole 
apparatus  was  almost  cylindrical,  and  water-tight  save 
in  the  self-acting  ventilators,  which  could  only  give 
access  to  the  smallest  portion  of  water.  I  considered 
that  if  the  lifeboat,  fully  manned,  were  launched  into 
the  roughest  seas,  or  off  the  deck  of  a  vessel,  it  would, 
even  if  it  turned  on  its  back,  immediately  right  itself, 

13 


290  Ship-building  in  Belfast 

without  any  of  the  crew  being  disturbed  from  their 
positions,  to  which  they  were  to  have  been  strapped. 

It  happened  that  at  this  time  (the  summer  of  1850) 
his  grace  the  late  Duke  of  Northumberland,  who  had 
always  taken  a  deep  interest  in  the  Lifeboat  Institu- 
tion, offered  a  prize  of  one  hundred  guineas  for  the 
best  model,  and  design  of  such  a  craft ;  so  I  deter- 
mined to  complete  my  plans,  and  make  a  working 
model  of  my  lifeboat.  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  cylindrico-conical  form,  with  the  frames  to  be  car- 
ried completely  round  and  forming  beams  as  well,  and 
the  two  screws,  one  at  each  end,  worked  off  the  same 
power,  by  which  one  or  other  of  them  would  always  be 
immersed,  were  worth  registering  in  the  patent-office. 
I  therefore  entered  a  caveat  there,  and  continued  work- 
ing at  my  model  in  the  evenings.  I  first  made  a  wood- 
en block  model,  on  the  scale  of  an  inch  to  the  foot.  I 
had  some  difficulty  in  procuring  sheets  of  copper  thin 
enough,  so  that  the  model  should  draw  only  the  cor- 
rect amount  of  water;  but  at  last  I  succeeded,  through 
finding  the  man  at  Newcastle  who  had  supplied  my 
father  with  copper  plates  for  his  early  road  locomo- 
tive. 

The  model  was  only  thirty-two  inches  in  length  and 
eight  inches  in  beam;  and,  in  order  to  fix  all  the  inter- 
nal fittings  of  tanks,  seats,  crank-handles,  and  pulleys, 
I  had  first  to  fit  the  shell  plating,  and  then,  by  finally 
securing  one  strake  of  plates  on,  and  then  another, 
after  all  inside  was  complete,  I  at  last  finished  for 
good  the  last  outside  plate.  In  executing  the  job,  my 
early  experience  of  all  sorts  of  handiwork  came  ser- 
viceably  to  my  aid.  After  many  a  whole  night's  work 
— for  the  evenings  alone  were  not  sufficient  for  the  pur- 
pose—  I  at  length  completed  my  model,  and  trium- 
phantly and  confidently  took  it  to  sea  in  an  open  boat, 
and  then  cast  it  into  the  waves.     The  model  either 


Prize  for  the  Lifeboat.  291 

rode  over  them  or  passed  through  them ;  if  it  was 
sometimes  rolled  over,  it  righted  itself  at  once,  and  re- 
sumed its  proper  attitude  in  the  waters.  After  a  con- 
siderable trial,  I  found  scarcely  a  trace  of  water  inside. 
Such  as  had  got  there  was  merely  through  the  joints  in 
the  sliding  hatches,  though  the  ventilators  were  free  to 
work  during  the  experiments. 

I  completed  the  prescribed  drawings  and  specifica- 
tions, and  sent  them,  together  with  the  model,  to  Som- 
erset House.  Some  two  hundred  and  eighty  schemes 
of  lifeboats  were  submitted  for  competition,  but  mine 
was  not  successful.  I  suspect  that  the  extreme  novelty 
of  the  arrangement  deterred  the  adjudicators  from 
awarding  in  its  favor.  Indeed,  the  scheme  was  so  un- 
precedented, and  so  entirely  out  of  the  ordinary  course 
of  things,  that  there  was  no  special  mention  made  of  it 
in  the  report  afterwards  published,  and  even  the  de- 
scription of  it  there  given  was  incorrect.  The  prize 
was  awarded  to  Mr.  James  Beeching,  of  Great  Yar- 
mouth, whose  plans  were  afterwards  generally  adopt- 
ed by  the  Lifeboat  Society.  I  have  preserved  my 
model  just  as  it  was,  and  some  of  its  features  have  since 
been  introduced  with  advantage  into  ship-building.* 

*  Although  Mr.  Hartland  took  no  further  steps  with  his  lifeboat,  the 
project  seems  well  worthy  of  a  fair  trial.  We  had  lately  the  pleasure 
of  seeing  the  model  launched  and  tried  on  the  lake  behind  Mr.  Har- 
land's  residence  at  Ormiston,  near  Belfast.  The  cylindrical  lifeboat 
kept  perfectly  water-tight,  and  though  thrown  into  the  water  in  many 
different  positions — sometimes  tumbled  in  on  its  prow,  at  other  times 
on  its  back  (the  deck  being  undermost) — it  invariably  righted  itself. 
The  screws  fore  and  aft  worked  well,  and  were  capable  of  being  turned 
by  human  labor  or  by  steam  power.  Now  that  such  large  freights  of 
passengers  are  carried  by  ocean-going  ships,  it  would  seem  necessary 
that  some  such  method  should  be  adopted  of  preserving  life  at  sea ; 
for  ordinary  lifeboats,  which  are  so  subject  to  destructive  damage,  are 
often  of  little  use  in  fires  or  shipwrecks,  or  other  accidents  on  the 
ocean. 


292  Ship-building  in  JZelfast. 

The  firm  of  Robert  Stephenson  &  Co.  having  con- 
tracted to  build  for  the  government  three  large  iron 
caissons  for  the  Keyham  Docks,  and  as  these  were 
very  similar  in  construction  to  that  of  an  ordinary 
iron  ship,  draughtsmen  conversant  with  that  class  of 
work  were  specially  engaged  to  superintend  it.  The 
manager,  knowing  my  fondness  for  ships,  placed  me 
as  his  assistant  at  this  new  work.  After  I  had  mas- 
tered it,  I  endeavored  to  introduce  improvements,  hav- 
ing observed  certain  defects  in  laying  down  the  lines; 
I  mean,  by  the  use  of  graduated  curves  cut  out  of  thin 
wood.  In  lieu  of  this  method,  I  contrived  thin  tapered 
laths  of  lancewood,  and  weights  of  a  particular  form, 
with  steel  claws  and  knife  edges  attached,  so  as  to 
hold  the  lath  tightly  down  to  the  paper,  yet  capable 
of  being  readily  adjusted,  so  as  to  produce  any  form 
of  curve,  along  which  the  pen  could  freely  and  con- 
tinuously travel.  This  method  proved  very  efficient, 
and  it  has  since  come  into  general  use. 

The  Messrs.  Stephenson  were  then  also  making  ma- 
rine-engines, as  well  as  large  condensing  pumping-en- 
gines,  and  a  large  tubular  bridge  to  be  erected  over 
the  river  Don.  The  splendid  high-level  bridge  over 
the  Tyne,  of  which  Robert  Stephenson  was  the  engi- 
neer, was  also  in  course  of  construction.  With  the 
opportunity  of  seeing  these  great  works  in  progress, 
and  of  visiting,  during  my  holidays  and  long  even- 
ings, most  of  the  manufactories  and  mines  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Newcastle,  I  could  not  fail  to  pick 
up  considerable  knowledge,  and  an  acquaintance  with 
a  vast  variety  of  trades.  There  were  about  thirty 
other  pupils  in  the  works  at  the  same  time  with  my- 
self ;  some  were  there  either  through  favor  or  idle 
fancy ;  but  comparatively  few  gave  their  full  atten- 
tion to  the  work,  and  I  have  since  heard  nothing  of 
them.     Indeed,  unless  a  young  fellow  takes  a  real  in- 


Apprenticeship  at  Stephensons\  293 

terest  in  bis  work,  and  has  a  genuine  love  for  it,  the 
greatest  advantages  will  prove  of  no  avail  whatever. 

It  was  a  good  plan  adopted  at  the  works  to  require 
the  pupils  to  keep  the  same  hours  as  the  rest  of  the 
men;  and,  though  they  paid  a  premium  on  entering, 
to  give  them  the  same  rate  of  wages  as  the  rest  of  the 
lads.  Mr.  William  Hutchinson,  a  contemporary  of 
George  Stephenson,  was  the  managing  partner.  He 
was  a  person  of  great  experience,  and  had  the  most 
thorough  knowledge  of  men  and  materials,  knowing 
well  how  to  handle  both  to  the  best  advantage.  His  son- 
in-law,  Mr.  William  Weallans,  was  the  head  draughts- 
man, and  very  proficient,  not  only  in  quickness,  but  in 
accuracy  and  finish.  I  found  it  of  great  advantage  to 
have  the  benefit  of  the  example  and  the  training  of 
these  very  clever  men. 

My  five  years'  apprenticeship  was  completed  in  May, 
1851,  on  my  twentieth  birthday.  Having  had  but  very 
little  "black  time,"  as  it  was  called,  beyond  the  half- 
yearly  holiday  for  visiting  my  friends,  and  having  only 
" slept  in"  twice  during  the  five  years,  I  was  at  once 
entered  on  the  books  as  a  journeyman,  on  the  "big" 
wage  of  twenty  shillings  a  week.  Orders  were,  how- 
ever, at  that  time  very  difficult  to  be  had.  Railway 
trucks,  and  even  navvies'  barrows,  were  contracted  for 
in  order  to  keep  the  men  employed.  It  was  better  not 
to  discharge  them,  and  to  find  something  for  them  to 
do.  At  the  same  time  it  was  not  very  encouraging  for 
me,  under  such  circumstances,  to  remain  with  the  firm. 
I  therefore  soon  arranged  to  leave,  and  first  of  all  I 
went  to  see  London.  It  was  the  Great  Exhibition  year 
of  1851.  I  need  scarcely  say  what  a  rich  feast  I  found 
there,  and  how  thoroughly  I  enjoyed  it  all.  I  spent 
about  two  months  in  inspecting  the  works  of  art  and 
mechanics  in  the  exhibition,  to  my  own  great  advan- 
tage.    I  then  returned  home,  and,  after  remaining  in 


294  Ship-building  in  Belfast 

Scarborough  for  a  short  time,  I  proceeded  to  Glas- 
gow with  a  letter  of  introduction  to  Messrs.  J.  &  G. 
Thomson,  marine-engine  builders,  who  started  me  on 
the  same  wages  I  had  received  at  Stephenson's,  namely, 
twenty  shillings  a  week. 

I  found  the  banks  of  the  Clyde  splendid  ground  for 
gaining  further  mechanical  knowledge.  There  were 
the  ship  and  engine  works  on  both  sides  of  the  river 
down  to  Govan;  and  below  there,  at  Renfrew,  Dum- 
barton, Port  Glasgow,  and  Greenock,  no  end  of  mag- 
nificent yards,  so  that  I  had  plenty  of  occupation  for 
my  leisure  time  on  Saturday  afternoons.  The  works 
of  Messrs.  Robert  Napier  &  Sons  were  then  at  the  top 
of  the  tree.  The  largest  Cunard  steamers  were  built 
and  engined  there.  Tod  &  Macgregor  were  the  fore- 
most in  screw  steamships,  those  for  the  Peninsular  and 
Oriental  Company  being  splendid  models  of  symmetry 
and  works  of  art.  Some  of  the  fine  wooden  paddle- 
steamers,  built  in  Bristol  for  the  Royal  Mail  Compa- 
ny, were  sent  round  to  the  Clyde  for  their  machinery. 
I  contrived  to  board  all  these  ships  from  time  to  time, 
so  as  to  become  well  acquainted  with  their  respective 
merits  and  peculiarities. 

As  an  illustration  of  how  contrivances,  excellent  in 
principle,  but  defective  in  construction,  may  be  dis- 
carded, but  again  taken  up  under  more  favorable  cir- 
cumstances, I  may  mention  that  I  saw  a  Hall's  patent 
surface-condenser  thrown  to  one  side  from  one  of  these 
steamers,  the  principal  difficulty  being  in  keeping  it 
tight.  And  yet,  in  the  course  of  a  very  few  years, 
by  the  simplest  possible  contrivance — inserting  an  in- 
dia-rubber ring  round  each  end  of  the  tube  (Spencer's 
patent) — surface  condensation  in  marine-engines  came 
into  vogue,  and  there  is  probably  no  ocean-going  steam- 
er afloat  without  it,  furnished  with  every  variety  of 
suitable  packings. 


Become  Head  Draughtsman.  295 

After  some  time  the  Messrs.  Thomson  determined 
to  build  their  own  vessels,  and  an  experienced  naval 
draughtsman  was  engaged,  to  whom  I  was  atold  off" 
whenever  he  needed  assistance.  In  the  course  of  time 
more  and  more  of  the  ship  work  came  in  my  way. 
Indeed,  I  seemed  to  obtain  the  preference.  Fortu- 
nately for  us  both,  my  superior  obtained  an  appoint- 
ment of  a  similar  kind  on  the  Tyne,  at  superior  pay, 
and  I  was  promoted  to  his  place.  The  Thomsons  had 
now  a  very  line  ship-building  yard,  in  full  working  or- 
der, with  several  large  steamers  on  the  stocks.  I  was 
placed  in  the  drawing-office  as  head  draughtsman.  At 
the  same  time  I  had  no  rise  of  wages,  but  still  went  on 
enjoying  my  twenty  shillings  a  week.  I  was,  however, 
gaining  information  and  experience,  and  knew  that 
better  pay  would  follow  in  due  course  of  time.  And, 
without  solicitation,!  was  eventually  offered  an  engage- 
ment for  a  term  of  years,  at  an  increased  and  increas- 
ing salary,  with  three  months'  notice  on  either  side. 

I  had  only  enjoyed  the  advance  for  a  short  time 
when  Mr.  Thomas  Toward,  a  ship-builder  on  the  Tyne, 
being  in  want  of  a  manager,  made  application  to  the 
Messrs.  Stephenson  for  such  a  person.  They  men- 
tioned my  name,  and  Mr.  Toward  came  over  to  the 
Clyde  to  see  me.  The  result  was  that  I  became  en- 
gaged, and  it  was  arranged  that  I  should  enter  on  my 
enlarged  duties  on  the  Tyne  in  the  autumn  of  1853. 
It  was  with  no  small  reluctance  that  I  left  the  Messrs. 
Thomson.  They  were  first-class,  practical  men,  and 
had  throughout  shown  me  every  kindness  and  consid- 
eration. But  a  managership  was  not  to  be  had  every 
day,  and,  being  the  next  step  to  the  position  of  mas- 
ter, I  could  not  neglect  the  opportunity  of  advance- 
ment which  now  offered  itself. 

Before  leaving  Glasgow,  however,  I  found  that  it 
would  be  necessary  to  have  a  new  angle  and  plate  fur- 


Ship-building  in  Belfast. 


nace  provided  for  the  works  on  the  Tyne.  Now,  the 
best  man  in  Glasgow  for  building  these  important 
requisites  for  ship-building  work  was  scarcely  ever 
sober;  but,  by  watching  and  coaxing  him,  and  by  a 
liberal  supply  of  Glenlivat  afterwards,  I  contrived  to 
lay  down  on  paper,  from  his  directions,  what  he  con- 
sidered to  be  the  best  class  of  furnace,  and  by  the  aid 
of  this  I  was  afterwards  enabled  to  construct  what 
proved  to  be  the  best  furnace  on  the  Tyne. 

To  return  to  my  education  in  ship -building.  My 
early  efforts  in  ship-draughting  at  Stephenson's  were 
further  developed  and  matured  at  Thomsons',  on  the 
Clyde.  Models  and  drawings  were  more  carefully 
worked  out  on  the  quarter-inch  scale  than  heretofore. 
The  stern-frames  were  laid  off  and  put  up  at  once  cor- 
rectly, which  before  had  been  first  shaped  by  full-sized 
wooden  moulds.  I  also  contrived  a  mode  of  quickly 
and  correctly  laying  off  the  frame-lines  on  a  model,  by 
laying  it  on  a  plane  surface,  and  then,  with  a  rectangu- 
lar block  traversing  it,  a  pencil  in  a  suitable  holder 
being  readily  applied  over  the  curved  surface.  This 
method  is  now  in  general  use. 

Even  at  that  time  competition,  as  regards  speed,  in 
the  Clyde  steamers  was  very  keen.  Foremost  among 
the  competitors  was  the  late  Mr.  David  Hutchinson, 
who,  though  delighted  with  the  Mountaineer,  built  by 
the  Thomsons  in  1853,  did  not  hesitate  to  have  her 
lengthened  forward  to  make  her  sharper,  so  as  to  se- 
cure her  ascendency  in  speed  during  the  ensuing  sea- 
son. The  result  was  satisfactory ;  and  his  steamers 
grew  and  grew,  until  they  developed  into  the  cele- 
brated lona  and  Cambria,  which  were  in  later  years 
built  for  him  by  the  same  firm.  I  may  mention  that 
the  Cunard  screw-steamer  Jura  was  the  last  heavy  job 
with  which  I  was  connected  while  at  Thomsons'. 

I  then  proceeded  to  the  Tyne,  to  superintend  the 


Manager  of  Shipbuilding  Yard,  207 

building  of  ships  and  marine  boilers.  The  ship-build- 
ing  yard  was  at  St.  Peter's,  about  two  and  a  half  miles 
below  Newcastle.     I  found  the  work,  as  practised 

there,  rough-and-ready;  but,  by  steady  attention  to  .'ill 
the  details,  and  by  careful  inspection  when  passing  the 
"piece-work"  (a  practice  much  in  vogue  there,  but 
which  I  discouraged),  I  contrived  to  raise  the  standard 
of  excellence,  without  a  corresponding  increase  of 
price.  My  object  was  to  raise  the  quality  of  the  work 
turned  out;  and,  as  we  had  orders  from  the  Russian 
government,  from  China,  and  the  Continent,  as  well  as 
from  ship-owners  at  home,  I  observed  that  quality  was 
a  very  important  element  in  all  commercial  success. 
My  master,  Mr.  Thomas  Toward,  was  in  declining 
health;  and,  being  desirous  of  spending  his  winters 
abroad,  I  was  consequently  left  in  full  charge  of  the 
works.  But,  as  there  did  not  appear  to  be  a  satisfac- 
tory prospect,  under  the  circumstances,  for  any  mate- 
rial development  of  the  business,  a  trifling  circum- 
stance arose,  which  again  changed  the  course  of  my 
career. 

An  advertisement  appeared  in  the  papers  for  a 
manager  to  conduct  a  ship-building  yard  in  Belfast. 
I  made  inquiries  as  to  the  situation,  and  eventually 
applied  for  it.  I  was  appointed,  and  entered  upon  my 
duties  there  at  Christmas,  1854.  The  yard  was  a  much 
larger  one  than  that  on  the  Tyne,  and  was  capable  of 
great  expansion.  It  was  situated  on  what  was  then 
well  known  as  the  Queen's  Island;  but  now,  like  the 
Isle  of  Bogs,  it  has  been  attached  by  reclamation. 
The  yard,  about  four  acres  in  extent,  was  held  by 
lease  from  the  Belfast  Harbor  Commissioners.  It  was 
well  placed,  alongside  a  fine  patent  slip,  with  clear 
frontage,  allowing  of  the  largest  ships  being  freely 
launched.  Indeed,  the  first  ship  built  there,  the  Mary 
Stenhouse,  had  only  just  been  completed  and  launched 

13* 


298  Ship-building  in  Belfast. 

by  Messrs.  Robert  Hickson  &  Co.,  then  the  proprie- 
tors of  the  undertaking.  They  were  also  the  owners 
of  the  Eliza  Street  Iron  Works,  Belfast,  which  were 
started  to  work  up  old  iron  materials.  But,  as  the 
works  were  found  to  be  unremunerative,  they  were 
shortly  afterwards  closed. 

On  my  entering  the  ship-building  yard  I  found  that 
the  firm  had  an  order  for  two  large  sailing-ships.  One 
of  these  was  partly  in  frame,  and  I  at  once  tackled 
with  it  and  the  men.  Mr.  Hickson,  the  acting  partner, 
not  being  practically  acquainted  with  the  business,  the 
whole  proceeding  connected  with  the  building  of  the 
ships  devolved  upon  me.  I  had  been  engaged  to  su- 
persede a  manager  summarily  dismissed.  Although 
he  had  not  given  satisfaction  to  his  employers,  he  was 
a  great  favorite  with  the  men.  Accordingly,  my  ap- 
pearance as  manager  in  his  stead  was  not  very  agree- 
able to  the  employed.  On  inquiry,  I  found  that  the 
rate  of  wages  paid  was  above  the  usual  value,  while 
the  quantity  as  well  as  quality  of  the  work  done  were 
below  the  standard.  I  proceeded  to  rectify  these  de- 
fects by  paying  the  ordinary  rate  of  wages,  and  then 
by  raising  the  quality  of  the  work  done.  I  was  met 
by  the  usual  method — a  strike.  The  men  turned  out. 
They  were  abetted  by  the  former  manager,  and  the 
leading  hands  hung  about  the  town  unemployed,  in 
the  hope  of  my  throwing  up  the  post  in  disgust. 

But,  nothing  daunted,  I  went  repeatedly  over  to  the 
Clyde  for  the  purpose  of  enlisting  fresh  hands.  When 
I  brought  them  over,  however,  in  batches,  there  was 
the  greatest  difficulty  in  inducing  them  to  work.  They 
were  intimidated,  or  enticed,  or  feasted,  and  sent  home 
again.  The  late  manager  had  also  taken  a  yard  on  the 
other  side  of  the  river,  and  actually  commenced  to 
build  a  ship,  employing  some  of  his  old  comrades;  but 
beyond  laying  the  keel  little  more  was  ever  done.     A 


Difficulty  of  a  Strike.  299 

few  months  after  rny  arrival  my  firm  had  to  arrange 
with  its  creditors,  while  I,  pending  the  settlement,  had 
myself  to  guarantee  the  wages  to  a  few  of  the  leading 
hands,  whom  I  had  only  just  succeeded  in  gathering 
together.  In  this  dilemma  an  old  friend,  a  foreman 
on  the  Clyde,  came  over  to  Belfast  to  see  me.  After 
hearing  my  story,  and  considering  the  difficulties  I 
had  to  encounter,  he  advised  me  at  once  to  "  throw  up 
the  job!"  My  reply  was,  that  "  having  mounted  a  res- 
tive horse,  I  would  ride  him  into  the  stable." 

Notwithstanding  the  advice  of  my  friend,  I  held  on. 
The  comparatively  few  men  in  the  works,  as  well  as 
those  out,  evidently  observed  my  determination.  The 
obstacles  were  no  doubt  great ;  the  financial  difficul- 
ties were  extreme ;  and  yet  there  was  a  prospect  of 
profit  from  the  work  in  hand,  provided  only  the  men 
could  be  induced  to  settle  steadily  down  to  their  ordi- 
nary employment.  I  gradually  gathered  together  a 
number  of  steady  workmen,  and  appointed  suitable 
foremen.  I  obtained  a  considerable  accession  of 
strength  from  Newcastle.  On  the  death  of  Mr.  Tow- 
ard, his  head  foreman,  Mr.  William  Hanston,  with  a 
number  of  the  leading  hands,  joined  me.  From  that 
time  forward  the  works  went  on  apace,  and  we  fin- 
ished the  ships  in  hand  to  the  perfect  satisfaction  of 
the  owners. 

Orders  were  obtained  for  several  large  sailing-ships, 
as  well  as  screw- vessels.  We  lifted  and  repaired 
wrecked  ships,  to  the  material  advantage  of  Mr.  Hick- 
son,  then  the  sole  representative  of  the  firm.  After 
three  years  thus  engaged,  I  resolved  to  start  some- 
where as  a  ship-builder  on  my  own  account.  I  made 
inquiries  at  Garston,  Birkenhead,  and  other  places. 
When  Mr.  Hickson  heard  of  my  intentions,  he  said  he 
had  no  wish  to  carry  on  the  concern  after  I  left,  and 
made  a  satisfactory  proposal  for  the  sale  to  me  of  his 


300  Ship-building  in  Belfast. 

holding  of  the  Queen's  Island  yard.  So  I  agreed  to 
the  proposed  arrangement.  The  transfer  and  the  pur- 
chase were  soon  completed,  through  the  kind  assistance 
of  my  old  and  esteemed  friend,  Mr.  G.  C.  Schwabe,  of 
Liverpool,  whose  nephew,  Mr.  G.  W.  Wolff,  had  been 
with  me  for  a  few  months  as  my  private  assistant. 

It  was  necessary,  however,  before  commencing  for 
myself,  that  I  should  assist  Mr.  Hickson  in  finishing 
off  the  remaining  vessels  in  hand,  as  well  as  to  look 
out  for  orders  on  my  own  account.  Fortunately,  I  had 
not  long  to  wait,  for  it  had  so  happened  that  my  intro- 
duction to  the  Messrs.  Thomson  of  Glasgow  had  been 
made  through  the  instrumentality  of  my  good  friend 
Mr.  Schwabe,  who  induced  Mr.  James  Bibby  (of  J. 
Bibby,  Sons  &  Co.,  Liverpool)  to  furnish  me  with  the 
necessary  letter.  While  in  Glasgow,  I  had  endeav- 
ored to  assist  the  Messrs.  Bibby  in  the  purchase  of  a 
steamer ;  so  I  was  now  intrusted  by  them  with  the 
building  of  three  screw-steamers,  the  Venetian,  Sicil- 
ian, and  Syrian,  each  two  hundred  and  seventy  feet 
long  by  thirty-four  feet  beam,  and  twenty -two  feet 
nine  inches  hold;  and  contracted  with  Macnab  &  Co., 
Greenock,  to  supply  the  requisite  steam-engines. 

This  was  considered  a  large  order  in  those  days. 
It  required  many  additions  to  the  machinery,  plant, 
and  tools  of  the  yard.  I  invited  Mr.  Wolff,  then  away 
in  the  Mediterranean  as  engineer  of  a  steamer,  to  return 
and  take  charge  of  the  drawing-office.  Mr.  Wolff  had 
served  his  apprenticeship  with  Messrs.  Joseph  Whit- 
worth  &  Co.,  of  Manchester,  and  was  a  most  able 
man,  thoroughly  competent  for  the  work.  Everything 
went  on  prosperously,  and,  in  the  midst  of  all  my  en- 
gagements, I  found  time  to  woo  and  win  the  hand  of 
Miss  Rosa  Wann,  of  Wilmont,  Belfast,  to  whom  I  was 
married  on  the  26th  of  January,  1860,  and  by  her 
great  energy,  soundness  of  judgment,  and  cleverness 


Partnership  with  Mr.  Wolff.  301 

in  organization  I  was  soon  relieved  from  all  sources 
of  care  and  anxiety,  excepting  those  connected  with 
business. 

The  steamers  were  completed  in  the  course  of  the 
following  year,  doubtless  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
owners,  for  their  delivery  was  immediately  followed 
by  an  order  for  two  larger  vessels.  As  I  required  fre- 
quently to  go  from  home,  and  as  the  works  must  be 
carefully  attended  to  during  my  absence,  on  the  1st  of 
January,  1862,  I  took  Mr.  Wolff  in  as  a  partner,  and 
the  firm  has  since  continued  under  the  name  of  Har- 
land  &  Wolff.  I  may  here  add  that  I  have,  through- 
out, received  the  most  able  advice  and  assistance  from 
my  excellent  friend  and  partner,  and  that  we  have  to- 
gether been  enabled  to  found  an  entirely  new  branch 
of  industry  in  Belfast. 

It  is  necessary  for  me  here  to  refer  back  a  little  to  a 
screw-steamer  which  was  built  on  the  Clyde  for  Bibby 
&  Co.,  by  Mr.  John  Read,  and  engined  by  J.  &  G. 
Thomson  while  I  was  with  them.  That  steamer  was 
called  the  Tiber.  She  was  looked  upon  as  of  an  ex- 
treme length,  being  two  hundred  and  thirty -five  feet, 
in  proportion  to  her  beam,  which  was  twenty-nine  feet. 
Serious  misgivings  were  thrown  out  as  to  whether  she 
would  ever  stand  a  heavy  sea.  Vessels  of  such  pro- 
portions were  thought  to  be  crank,  and  even  danger- 
ous. Nevertheless,  she  seemed  to  my  mind  a  great 
success.  From  that  time  I  began  to  think  and  work 
out  the  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  such  a  vessel, 
from  an  owner's  as  well  as  from  a  builder's  point  of 
view.  The  result  was  greatly  in  favor  of  the  owner, 
though  entailing  difficulties  in  construction  as  regards 
the  builder.  These  difficulties,  however,  I  thought, 
might  easily  be  overcome. 

In  the  first  steamers  ordered  of  me  by  the  Messrs. 
Bibby,  I  thought  it  more  prudent  to  simply  build  to 


302  Ship-building  in  Belfast. 

the  dimensions  furnished,  although  they  were  even 
longer  than  usual.  But,  prior  to  the  precise  dimen- 
sions being  fixed  for  the  second  order,  I  with  confi- 
dence proposed  my  theory  of  the  greater  carrying 
power  and  accommodation,  both  for  cargo  and  pas- 
sengers, that  would  be  gained  by  constructing  the 
new  vessels  of  increased  length,  without  any  increase 
of  beam.  I  conceived  that  they  would  show  improved 
qualities  in  a  sea-way,  and  that,  notwithstanding  the 
increased  accommodation,  the  same  speed,  with  the 
same  power,  would  be  obtained,  by  only  a  slight  in- 
crease in  the  first  cost.  The  result  was  that  I  was 
allowed  to  settle  the  dimensions,  and  the  following 
were  then  decided  on:  Length,  three  hundred  and  ten 
feet;  beam,  thirty-four  feet  ;  depth  of  hold,  twenty- 
four  feet  nine  inches  •;  all  of  which  were  fully  com- 
pensated for  by  making  the  upper  deck  entirely  of 
iron. 

In  this  way  the  hull  of  the  ship  was  converted  into 
a  box-girder  of  immensely  increased  strength,  and  was, 
I  believe,  the  first  ocean  steamer  ever  so  constructed. 
The  rig,  too,  was  unique.  The  four  masts  were  made 
of  one  height,  with  fore-and-aft  sails,  but  no  yards, 
thereby  reducing  the  number  of  hands  necessary  to 
work  them.  And  the  steam- winches  were  so  arranged 
as  to  be  serviceable  for  all  the  heavy  hauls,  as  well  as 
for  the  rapid  handling  of  the  cargo. 

In  the  introduction  of  so  many  novelties  I  was  well 
supported  by  Mr.  F.  Leyland,  the  junior  partner  of 
Messrs.  Bibby's  firm,  and  by  the  intelligent  and  prac- 
tical experience  of  Captain  Birch,  the  overlooker, 
and  Captain  George  Wakeham,  the  commodore  of 
the  company.  Unsuccessful  attempts  had  been  made, 
many  years  before,  to  condense  the  steam  from  the 
engines  by  passing  it  into  variously  formed  chambers, 
tubes,  etc.,  to  be  there  condensed  by  surfaces   kept 


Messrs.  Bibby  of  Liverpool.  803 

cold  by  the  circulation  of  sea-water  round  them,  bo  as 

to  preserve  the  pure  water,  and  return  it  to  the  toil- 
ers free  of  salt.  In  this  way  "salting  up"  was  avoid- 
ed, and  a  considerable  saying  of  fuel  and  expenses  in 
repairs  was  effected.  Mr.  Spencer  bad  patented  an 
improvement  on  Hall's  method  of  surface  condensa- 
tion, by  introducing  india-rubber  rings  at  each  end  of 
the  tubes.  This  had  been  tried  as  an  experiment  on 
shore,  and  we  advised  that  it  should  be  adopted  in  one 
of  Messrs.  Bibby's  smallest  steamers,  the  Frankfort. 
The  results  were  found  perfectly  satisfactory.  Some 
twenty  per  cent,  of  fuel  was  saved;  and,  after  the  pat- 
ent-right had  been  bought,  the  method  was  adopted 
in  all  the  vessels  of  the  company. 

When  these  new  ships  were  first  seen  at  Liverpool, 
the  "  old  salts  "  held  up  their  hands.  They  were  too 
long !  they  were  too  sharp  !  they  would  break  their 
backs  !  They  might,  indeed,  get  out  of  the  Mersey, 
but  they  would  never  get  back  !  The  ships,  however, 
sailed,  and  they  made  rapid  and  prosperous  voyages 
to  and  from  the  Mediterranean.  They  fulfilled  all  the 
promises  which  had  been  made.  They  proved  the  ad- 
vantages of  our  new  build  of  ships,  and  the  owners 
were  perfectly  satisfied  with  their  superior  strength, 
speed,  and  accommodation.  The  Bibbys  were  wise 
men  in  their  day  and  generation.  They  did  not  stop, 
but  went  on  ordering  more  ships.  After  the  Grecian 
and  the  Italian  had  made  two  or  three  voyages  to  Al- 
exandria, they  sent  us  an  order  for  three  more  vessels. 
By  our  advice  they  were  made  twenty  feet  longer 
than  the  previous  ones,  though  of  no  greater  beam; 
in  other  respects  they  were  almost  identical.  This 
was  too  much  for  "Jack."  "What!"  he  exclaimed, 
"  more  Bibby's  coffins  ?"  Yes,  more  and  more  ;  and, 
in  the  course  of  time,  most  ship-owners  followed  our 
example. 


304  Ship-building  in  Belfast. 

To  a  young  firm  a  repetition  of  orders  like  these 
was  a  great  advantage,  not  only  because  of  the  novel 
design  of  the  ships,  but  also  because  of  their  construct- 
ive details.  TVe  did  our  best  to  fit  up  the  Egyptian, 
Dalmatian,  and  Arabian  as  first-rate  vessels ;  those 
engaged  in  the  Mediterranean  trade  finding  them  to 
be  serious  rivals,  partly  because  of  the  great  cargoes 
which  they  carried,  but  principally  from  the  regular- 
ity with  which  they  made  their  voyages  with  such 
surprisingly  small  consumption  of  coal.  They  were 
not,  however,  what  "  Jack "  had  been  accustomed  to 
consider  "dry  ships."  The  ship  built  Dutchman-fash- 
ion, with  her  bluff  ends,  is  the  driest  of  all  ships,  but 
the  least  steady,  because  she  rises  to  every  sea.  But 
the  new  ships,  because  of  their  length  and  sharpness, 
precluded  this;  for,  though  they  rose  sufficiently  to  an 
approaching  wave  for  all  purposes  of  safety,  they  often 
went  through  the  crest  of  it,  and,  though  shipping  a 
little  water,  it  was  not  only  easier  for  the  vessel,  but 
the  shortest  road. 

Nature  seems  to  have  furnished  us  with  the  finest 
design  for  a  vessel  in  the  form  of  the  fish:  it  presents 
such  fine  lines,  is  so  clean,  so  true,  and  so  rapid  in  its 
movements.  The  ship,  however,  must  float ;  and  to 
hit  upon  the  happy  medium  of  velocity  and  stability 
seems  to  me  the  art  and  mystery  of  ship-building.  In 
order  to  give  large  carrying  capacity,  we  gave  flatness 
of  bottom  and  squareness  of  bilge.  This  became  known 
in  Liverpool  as  the  "  Belfast  bottom,"  and  it  has  been 
generally  adopted.  This  form  not  only  serves  to  give 
stability,  but  also  increases  the  carrying  power  with- 
out lessening  the  speed. 

While  Sailor  Jack  and  our  many  commercial  rivals 
stood  aghast  and  wondered,  our  friends  gave  us  yet 
another  order  for  a  still  longer  ship,  with  still  the 
same  beam  and  power.     The  vessel  was  named  the 


Increasing  Length  of  Vessels.  305 

Persian;  she  was  three  hundred  and  sixty  feet  long, 
thirty-four  feet  beam,  twenty-four  feet  nine  inches 
hold.  More  cargo  was  thus  carried,  at  higher  speed. 
It  was  only  a  further  development  of  the  fish  form  of 
structure.  Venice  was  an  important  port  to  call  at. 
The  channel  was  difficult  to  navigate,  and  the  Vene- 
tian class  (two  hundred  and  seventy  feet  long)  was 
supposed  to  be  the  extreme  length  that  could  be  han- 
dled there.  But  what  with  the  straight  stem — by 
cutting  the  forefoot  away — and  by  the  introduction 
of  powerful  steering-gear,  worked  amidships,  the  cap- 
tain was  able  to  navigate  the  Persian,  ninety  feet 
longer  than  the  Venetian,  with  much  less  anxiety  and 
inconvenience. 

Until  the  building  of  the  Persian,  we  had  taken 
great  pride  in  the  modelling  and  finish  of  the  old  style 
of  cutwater  and  figurehead,  with  bowsprit  and  jib- 
boom;  but,  in  urging  the  advantages  of  greater  length 
of  hull,  we  were  met  by  the  fact  of  its  being  simply 
impossible,  in  certain  docks,  to  swing  vessels  of  any 
greater  length  than  those  already  constructed.  Not 
to  be  beaten,  we  proposed  to  do  away  with  all  these 
overhanging  encumbrances,  and  to  adopt  a  perpendic- 
ular stem.  In  this  way  the  hull  might  be  made  so 
much  longer;  and  this  was,  I  believe,  the  first  occasion 
of  its  being  adopted  in  England  in  the  case  of  an 
ocean  steamer,  though  the  once  -  celebrated  Collins 
Line  of  paddle  steamers  had,  I  believe,  such  stems. 
The  iron  decks,  iron  bulwarks,  and  iron  rails  were  all 
found  very  serviceable  in  our  later  vessels,  there  be- 
ing no  leaking,  no  calking  of  deck -planks  or  water- 
ways, nor  any  consequent  damaging  of  cargo.  Having 
found  it  impossible  to  combine  satisfactorily  wood 
with  iron,  each  being  so  differently  affected  by  tem- 
perature and  moisture,  I  secured  some  of  these  novel- 
ties of  construction  in  a  patent,  by  which  filling  in  the 


306  Ship-building  in  JBelfast. 

spaces  between  frames,  etc.,  with  Portland  cement,  in- 
stead of  chocks  of  wood,  and  covering  the  iron  plates 
with  cement  and  tiles,  came  into  practice,  and  this  has 
since  come  into  very  general  use. 

The  Tiber,  already  referred  to,  was  two  hundred  and 
thirty-five  feet  in  length  when  first  constructed  by 
Read,  of  Glasgow,  and  was  then  thought  too  long; 
but  she  was  now  placed  in  our  hands  to  be  lengthened 
thirty-nine  feet,  as  well  as  to  have  an  iron  deck  added, 
both  of  which  greatly  improved  her.  We  also  length- 
ened the  Messrs.  Bibby's  Calpe — also  built  by  Messrs. 
Thomson  while  I  was  there — by  no  less  than  ninety- 
three  feet.  The  advantage  of  lengthening  ships,  re- 
taining the  same  beam  and  power,  having  become  gen- 
erally recognized,  we  were  intrusted  by  the  Cunard 
Company  to  lengthen  the  Uecla,  Olympus,  Atlas,  and 
Marathon,  each  by  sixty-three  feet.  The  Royal  Con- 
sort P.S.,  which  had  been  lengthened  first  at  Liverpool, 
was  again  lengthened  by  us  at  Belfast. 

The  success  of  all  this  heavy  work,  executed  for  suc- 
cessful owners,  put  a  sort  of  backbone  into  the  Belfast 
ship-building  yard.  While  other  concerns  were  slack, 
we  were  either  lengthening  or  building  steamers,  as 
well  as  sailing-ships,  for  firms  in  Liverpool,  London, 
and  Belfast.  Many  acres  of  ground  were  added  to  the 
works.  The  Harbor  Commissioners  had  now  made  a 
fine  new  graving-dock,  and  connected  the  Queen's  Isl- 
and with  the  mainland.  The  yard,  thus  improved  and 
extended,  was  surveyed  by  the  Admiralty,  and  placed 
on  the  first-class  list.  We  afterwards  built  for  the 
government  the  gun-vessels  Lynx  and  Algerine,  as  well 
as  the  store  and  torpedo  ship  Heda,  of  three  thousand 
three  hundred  and  sixty  tons. 

The  Suez  Canal  being  now  open,  our  friends,  the 
Messrs.  Bibby,  gave  us  an  order  for  three  steamers  of 
very  large  tonnage,  capable  of  being  adapted  for  trade 


Ships  for  Bibbtfs  Firm.  307 

with  the  antipodes,  if  necessary.  In  these  new  vessels 
there  was  no  retrograde  step  as  regards  length,  for 
they  were  three  hundred  and  ninety  feet  keel  by  thir- 
ty-seven feet  beam,  square-rigged  on  three  of  the  masts, 
with  the  yards  for  the  first  time  fitted  on  travellers,  so 
as  to  enable  them  to  be  readily  sent  down;  thus  form- 
ing a  unique  combination  of  big  fore-and-aft  sails  with 
handy  square  sails.  These  ships  were  named  the  Is- 
trian,  Iberian,  and  Illyrian,  and  in  1868  they  went  to 
sea,  soon  after  to  be  followed  by  three  more  ships — 
the  Bavarian,  Bohemian,  and  Bulgarian  —  in  most 
respects  the  same,  though  ten  feet  longer,  with  the 
same  beam.  They  were  first  placed  in  the  Mediterra- 
nean trade,  but  were  afterwards  transferred  to  the 
Liverpool  and  Boston  trade,  for  cattle  and  emigrants. 
These,  with  three  smaller  steamers  for  the  Spanish 
cattle  trade,  and  two  larger  steamers  for  other  trades, 
made  together  twenty  steam-vessels  constructed  for 
the  Messrs.  James  Bibby  &  Co.'s  firm;  and  it  was  a 
matter  of  congratulation  that,  after  a  great  deal  of 
heavy  and  constant  work,  not  one  of  them  had  ex- 
hibited the  slightest  indication  of  weakness,  all  con- 
tinuing in  first-rate  working  order. 

The  speedy  and  economic  working  of  the  Belfast 
steamers,  compared  with  those  of  the  ordinary  type, 
having  now  become  well  known,  a  scheme  was  set  on 
foot,  in  1869,  for  employing  similar  vessels,  though  of 
larger  size,  for  passenger  and  goods  accommodation 
between  England  and  America.  Mr.  T.  H.  Ismay,  of 
Liverpool,  the  spirited  ship-owner,  then  formed,  in  con- 
junction with  the  late  Mr.  G.  H.  Fletcher,  the  Oceanic 
Steam  Navigation  Company,  Limited,  and  we  were 
commissioned  by  them  to  build  six  large  transatlantic 
steamers,  capable  of  carrying  a  heavy  cargo  of  goods, 
as  well  as  a  full  complement  of  cabin  and  steerage  pas- 
sengers, between  Liverpool  and  New  York,  at  a  speed 


308  Ship-building  in  Belfast. 

equal,  if  not  superior,  to  that  of  the  Cunard  and  Inman 
lines.  The  vessels  were  to  be  longer  than  any  we  had 
yet  constructed,  being  four  hundred  feet  keel  and  for- 
ty-one feet  beam,  with  thirty-two  feet  hold. 

This  was  a  great  opportunity,  and  we  eagerly  em- 
braced it.  The  works  wTere  now  up  to  the  mark  in 
point  of  extent  and  appliances.  The  men  in  our  em- 
ployment were  mostly  of  our  own  training;  the  fore- 
men had  been  promoted  from  the  ranks  ;  the  manager, 
Mr.  "W.  A.  Wilson,  and  the  head  draughtsman,  Mr.  W. 
J.  Perrie  (since  become  partners),  having,  as  pupils, 
worked  up  through  all  the  departments,  and  ultimately 
won  their  honorable  and  responsible  positions  by  dint 
of  merit  only;  by  character,  perseverance,  and  ability. 
We  were,  therefore,  in  a  position  to  take  up  an  impor- 
tant contract  of  this  kind,  and  to  work  it  out  with 
heart  and  soul. 

As  everything  in  the  way  of  saving  of  fuel  was  of 
first-rate  importance,  we  devoted  ourselves  to  that 
branch  of  economic  working.  It  was  necessary  that 
buoyancy  or  space  should  be  left  for  cargo,  at  the 
same  time  that  increased  speed  should  be  secured,  with 
as  little  consumption  of  coal  as  possible.  The  Messrs. 
Elder  &  Co.,  of  Glasgow,  had  made  great  strides  in 
this  direction  with  the  paddle  steam-engines  which 
they  had  constructed  for  the  Pacific  Company  on  the 
compound  principle.  They  had  also  introduced  them 
on  some  of  their  screw  steamers,  with  more  or  less  suc- 
cess. Others  were  trying  the  same  principle  in  vari- 
ous forms,  by  the  use  of  high-pressure  cylinders,  and 
so  on,  the  form  of  the  boilers  being  varied  according  to 
circumstances,  for  the  proper  economy  of  fuel.  The 
first  thing  absolutely  wanted  was,  perfectly  reliable 
information  as  to  the  actual  state  of  the  compound  en- 
gine and  boiler  up  to  the  date  of  our  inquiry.  To 
ascertain  the  facts  by  experience,  we  despatched  Mr. 


Improved  Accommodations.  309 

Alexander  Wilson,  younger  brother  of  the  manager — 
who  had  been  formerly  a  pupil  of  Messrs.  Macnab  & 
Co.,  of  Greenock,  and  was  thoroughly  able  for  the 
work — to  make  a  number  of  voyages  in  steam-vessels 
fitted  with  the  best  examples  of  compound  engines. 

The  result  of  this  careful  inquiry  was  the  design  of 
the  machinery  and  boilers  of  the  Oceanic  and  five  sis- 
ter ships.  They  were  constructed  on  the  vertical  over- 
head "  tandem "  type,  with  five-feet  stroke  (at  that 
time  thought  excessive),  oval,  single-ended  transverse 
boilers,  with  a  working  pressure  of  sixty  pounds.  We 
contracted  with  Messrs.  Maudslay,  Sons,  &  Field,  of 
London,  for  three  of  these  sets,  and  with  Messrs.  George 
Forrester  &  Co.,  of  Liverpool,  for  the  other  three;  and 
as  we  found  we  could  build  the  six  vessels  in  the  same 
time  as  the  machinery  was  being  constructed,  and  as 
all  this  machinery  had  to  be  conveyed  to  Belfast  to  be 
there  fitted  on  board,  while  the  vessels  were  being  oth- 
erwise finished,  we  built  a  little  screw-steamer,  the 
Camel,  of  extra  strength,  with  very  big  hatchways,  to 
receive  these  large  masses  of  iron;  and  this,  in  course 
of  time,  was  found  to  work  with  great  advantage,  un- 
til, eventually,  we  constructed  our  own  machinery. 

We  were  most  fortunate  in  the  type  of  engine  we 
had  fixed  upon,  for  it  proved  both  economical  and  ser- 
viceable in  all  ways  ;  and,  with  but  slight  modifica- 
tions, we  repeated  it  in  the  many  subsequent  vessels 
which  we  built  for  the  White  Star  Company.  An- 
other feature  of  novelty  in  these  vessels  consisted  in 
placing  the  first-class  accommodation  amidships,  with 
the  third-class  aft  and  forward.  In  all  previous  ocean- 
steamers  the  cabin  passengers  had  been  berthed  near 
the  stern,  where  the  heaving  motion  of  the  vessel  was 
far  greater  than  in  the  centre,  and  where  that  most 
disagreeable  vibration  inseparable  from  proximity  to 
the   propeller  was   ever  present.     The  unappetizing 


310  Ship-huildi?ig  in  Belfast. 

smells  from  the  galley  were  also  avoided.  And  last, 
but  not  least,  a  commodious  smoking-saloon  was  fitted 
up  amidships,  contrasting  most  favorably  with  the 
scanty  accommodation  provided  in  other  vessels.  The 
saloon,  too,  presented  the  novelty  of  extending  the  full 
width  of  the  vessel,  and  was  lighted  from  each  side. 
Electric  bells  were  for  the  first  time  fitted  on  board 
ship.  The  saloon  and  entire  range  of  cabins  were 
lighted  by  gas  made  on  board,  though  this  has  since 
given  place  to  the  incandescent  electric  light.  A  fine 
promenade  deck  was  provided  over  the  saloon,  which 
was  accessible  from  below  in  all  weathers  by  the  grand 
staircase. 

These  and  other  arrangements  greatly  promoted 
the  comfort  and  convenience  of  the  cabin  passengers, 
while  those  in  the  steerage  found  great  improvements  in 
convenience,  sanitation,  and  accommodation.  "  Jack  " 
had  his  forecastle  well  ventilated  and  lighted,  and  a 
turtle-back  over  his  head  when  on  deck,  with  winches 
to  haul  for  him,  and  a  steam-engine  to  work  the  wheel, 
while  the  engineers  and  firemen  berthed  as  near  their 
work  as  possible,  never  needing  to  wet  a  jacket  or  miss 
a  meal.  In  short,  for  the  first  time  perhaps,  ocean- 
voyaging,  even  in  the  North  Atlantic,  was  made  not 
only  less  tedious  and  dreadful  to  all,  but  was  rendered 
enjoyable  and  even  delightful  to  many.  Before  the 
Oceanic,  the  pioneer  of  the  new  line,  was  launched, 
rival  companies  had  already  consigned  her  to  the  deep- 
est place  in  the  ocean.  Her  first  appearance  in  Liver- 
pool was,  therefore,  regarded  with  much  interest.  Mr. 
Ismay,  during  the  construction  of  the  vessel,  took  every 
pains  to  suggest  improvements  and  arrangements  with 
a  view  to  the  comfort  and  convenience  of  the  travel- 
ling public.  He  accompanied  the  vessel  on  her  first 
voyage  to  New  York,  in  March,  1871,  under  command 
of  Captain,  now  Sir  Digby,  Murray,  Bart.     Although 


The  White  Star  Lines.  311 

severe  weather  was  experienced,  the  ship  made  a  sj^len- 
did  voyage,  with  a  heavy  cargo  of  goods  and  passen- 
gers. The  Oceanic  thus  started  the  transatlantic  traf- 
fic of  the  company,  with  the  house-flag  of  the  White 
Star  proudly  flying  the  main. 

It  may  be  mentioned  that  the  speed  of  the  Oceanic 
was  at  least  a  knot  faster  per  hour  than  had  been  here- 
tofore accomplished  across  the  Atlantic.  The  motion 
of  the  vessel  was  easy,  without  any  indication  of  weak- 
ness or  straining,  even  in  the  heaviest  weather.  The 
only  inducement  to  slow  was  when  going  head  to  it 
(which  often  meant  head  through  it),  to  avoid  the  in- 
convenience of  shipping  a  heavy  body  of  "green  sea" 
on  deck  forward.  A  turtle-back  was  therefore  pro- 
vided to  throw  it  off,  which  proved  so  satisfactory,  as 
it  had  done  on  the  Holyhead  and  Kingston  boats,  that 
all  the  subsequent  vessels  were  similarly  constructed. 
Thus,  then,  as  with  the  machinery,  so  was  the  hull  of  the 

Oceanic  a  type  of  the  succeeding  vessels  which,  after 
intervals  of  a  few  months,  took  up  their  stations  on 
the  transatlantic  line. 

Having  often  observed,  when  at  sea  in  heavy  weath- 
er, how  the  pitching  of  the  vessel  caused  the  weights 
on  the  safety-valves  to  act  irregularly,  thus  letting 
puffs  of  steam  escape  at  every  heave,  and  as  high-pres- 
sure steam  was  too  valuable  a  commodity  to  be  so 
wasted,  we  determined  to  try  direct  -  acting  spiral 
springs,  similar  to  those  used  in  locomotives  in  con- 
nection with  the  compound  engine.  But  as  no  such 
experiment  was  possible  in  any  vessels  requiring  the 
Board  of  Trade  certificate,  the  alternative  of  using  the 

Camel  as  an  experimental  vessel  was  adopted.  The 
spiral  springs  were  accordingly  fitted  upon  the  boiler 
of  that  vessel,  and  with  such  a  satisfactory  result  that 
the  Board  of  Trade  allowed  the  use  of  the  same  con- 
trivance on  all  the  boilers  of  the  Oceanic  and  every 


312  Ship-buildi?ig  in  Belfast. 

subsequent  steamer,  and  the  contrivance  has  now  come 
into  general  use. 

It  would  be  too  tedious  to  mention  in  detail  the 
other  ships  built  for  the  White  Star  line.  The  Adri- 
atic and  Baltic  were  made  thirty-seven  feet  six  inches 
longer  than  the  Oceanic,  and  a  little  sharper,  being 
four  hundred  and  thirty-seven  feet  six  inches  keel, 
forty-one  feet  beam,  and  thirty-two  feet  hold.  The 
success  of  the  company  had  been  so  great  under  the 
able  management  of  Ismay,  Imrie,  &  Co.,  and  they 
had  secured  so  large  a  share  of  the  passengers  and 
cargo,  as  well  as  of  the  mails,  passing  between  Liver- 
pool and  New  York,  that  it  was  found  necessary  to 
build  two  still  larger  and  faster  vessels,  the  Britannic 
and  Germanic;  these  were  four  hundred  and  fifty-five 
feet  in  length,  forty-five  feet  in  beam,  and  of  five  thou- 
sand indicated  horse-power.  The  Britannic  was,  in 
the  first  instance,  constructed  with  the  propeller  fitted 
to  work  below  the  line  of  keel  when  in  deep  water,  by 
which  means  the  "racing"  of  the  engines  was  avoid- 
ed. When  approaching  shallow  water,  the  propeller 
was  raised  by  steam-power  to  the  ordinary  position 
without  any  necessity  for  stopping  the  engines  during 
the  operation.  Although  there  was  an  increase  of 
speed  by  this  means,  through  the  uniform  revolutions 
of  the  machinery  in  the  heaviest  sea,  yet  there  was  an 
objectionable  amount  of  vibration  at  certain  parts  of 
the  vessel,  so  that  we  found  it  necessary  to  return  to 
the  ordinary  fixed  propeller,  working  in  the  line  of  di- 
rection of  the  vessel.  Comfort  at  sea  is  of  even  more 
importance  than  speed;  and  although  we  had  succeed- 
ed in  four  small  steamers  working  on  the  new  princi- 
ple, it  was  found  better  to  continue  in  the  larger  ships 
to  resort  to  the  established  modes  of  propulsion.  It 
may  happen  that,  at  some  future  period,  the  new  meth- 
od may  yet  be  adopted  with  complete  success. 


Accident  to  the  Wolf.  313 

Meanwhile  competition  went  on  with  other  compa- 
nies. Monopoly  cannot  exist  between  England  and 
America.  Our  plans  were  followed,  and  sharper  boats 
and  heavier  power  became  the  rule  of  the  day.  But 
increase  of  horse-power  of  engines  means  increase  of 
heating  surface  and  largely  increased  boilers,  when 
we  reach  the  vanishing-point  of  profit,  after  which 
there  is  nothing  left  but  speed  and  expense.  It  may 
be  possible  to  fill  a  ship  with  boilers,  and  to  save  a 
few  hours  in  the  passage  from  Liverpool  to  New  York 
by  a  tremendous  expenditure  of  coal ;  but  whether 
that  will  answer  the  purpose  of  any  body  of  share- 
holders must  be  left  for  the  future  to  determine. 
"Brute  force"  may  be  still  further  employed.  It  is 
quite  possible  that  recent  "  large  strides "  towards  a 
more  speedy  transit  across  the  Atlantic  may  have  been 
made  "in  the  dark." 

The  last  ships  we  have  constructed  for  Ismay,  Imrie, 
&  Co.  have  been  of  comparatively  moderate  dimen- 
sions and  power — the  Arabic  and  Coptic,  four  hundred 
and  thirty  feet  long,  and  the  Ionic  and  Doric,  four  hun- 
dred and  forty  feet  long,  all  of  two  thousand  seven 
hundred  indicated  horse-power.  These  are  large  cargo 
steamers,  with  a  moderate  amount  of  saloon  accommo- 
dation, and  a  large  space  for  emigrants.  Some  of 
these  are  now  engaged  in  crossing  the  Pacific,  while 
others  are  engaged  in  the  line  from  London  to  New 
Zealand,  the  latter  being  specially  fitted  up  for  carry- 
ing frozen  meat. 

To  return  to  the  operations  of  the  Belfast  ship- 
building yard.  A  serious  accident  occurred  in  the 
autumn  of  1867  to  the  mail  paddle  steamer,  the  Wolf, 
belonging  to  the  Messrs.  Burns,  of  Glasgow.  When 
passing  out  of  the  Lough,  about  eight  miles  from  Bel- 
fast, she  was  run  into  by  another  steamer.  She  was 
cut  down  and  sunk,  and  there  she  lay  in  about  seven 

14 


314  Ship-building  in  Belfast. 

fathoms  of  water,  the  top  of  her  funnel  and  masts  be- 
ing only  visible  at  low  tide.  She  was  in  a  dangerous 
position  for  all  vessels  navigating  the  entrance  to  the 
port,  and  it  was  necessary  that  she  should  be  removed, 
either  by  dynamite,  gunpowder,  or  some  other  process. 
Divers  were  sent  down  to  examine  the  ship,  and  the 
injury  done  to  her  being  found  to  be  slight,  the  own- 
ers conferred  with  us  as  to  the  possibility  of  lifting 
her  and  bringing  her  into  port.  Though  such  a  process 
had  never  before  been  accomplished,  yet,  knowing  her 
structure  well,  and  finding  that  we  might  rely  upon 
smooth  water  for  about  a  week  or  two  in  summer,  we 
determined  to  do  what  we  could  to  lift  the  sunken  ves- 
sel to  the  surface. 

We  calculated  the  probable  weight  of  the  vessel, 
and  had  a  number  of  air-tanks  expressly  built  for  her 
floatation.  These  were  secured  to  the  ship  with  chains 
and  hooks,  the  latter  being  inserted  through  the  side- 
lights in  her  sheer  strake.  Early  in  the  following 
summer  everything  was  ready.  The  air-tanks  were 
prepared  and  rafted  together.  Powerful  screws  were 
attached  to  each  chain,  with  hand-pumps  for  emptying 
the  tanks,  together  with  a  steam  tender  fitted  with 
cooking  appliances,  berths,  and  stores  for  all  hands  en- 
gaged in  the  enterprise.  We  succeeded  in  attaching 
the  hooks  and  chains  by  means  of  divers,  the  chains 
being  ready  coiled  on  deck.  But  the  weather,  which 
before  seemed  to  be  settled,  now  gave  way.  No  soon- 
er had  we  got  the  pair  of  big  tanks  secured  to  the  after 
body  than  a  fierce  north-northeasterly  gale  set  in,  and 
we  had  to  run  for  it,  leaving  the  tanks  partly  filled,  in 
order  to  lessen  the  strain  on  everything. 

When  the  gale  had  settled  we  returned  again,  and 
found  that  no  harm  had  been  done.  The  remainder  of 
the  hooks  were  properly  attached  to  the  rest  of  the 
tanks,  the  chains  were  screwed  tightly  up,  and  the 


Raising  the  "  Wolf."  315 

tanks  were  pumped  clear.  Then  the  tide  rose,  and 
before  high  water  we  had  the  great  satisfaction  of  get- 
ting the  body  of  the  vessel  under  way,  and  towing  her 
about  a  cable's  length  from  her  old  bed.  At  each 
tide's  work  she  was  lifted  higher  and  higher,  and 
towed  into  shallower  water  towards  Belfast,  until  at 
length  we  had  her,  after  eight  days,  safely  in  the  har- 
bor, ready  to  enter  the  graving  dock  ;  not  more  ready, 
however,  than  we  all  were  for  our  beds,  for  we  had 
neither  undressed  nor  shaved  during  that  anxious  time. 
Indeed,  our  friends  scarcely  recognized  us  on  our  re- 
turn home. 

The  result  of  the  enterprise  was  this.  The  clean 
cut  made  into  the  bow  of  the  ship  by  the  collision  was 
soon  repaired.  The  crop  of  oysters  with  which  she 
was  incrusted  gave  place  to  the  scraper  and  the  paint- 
brush. The  Wolf  came  out  of  the  dock  to  the  satis- 
faction both  of  the  owners  and  underwriters,  and  she 
was  soon  "  ready  for  the  road,"  nothing  the  worse  for 
her  ten  months'  immersion.* 

Meanwhile  the  building  of  new  iron  ships  went  on 
at  Queen's  Island.  We  were  employed  by  another 
Liverpool  company — the  British  Shipowners'  Compa- 
ny, Limited — to  supply  some  large  steamers.  The 
British  Empire,  of  three  thousand  three  hundred  and 
sixty-one  gross  tonnage,  was  the  same  class  of  vessel 
as  those  of  the  White  Star  line,  but  fuller,  being  in- 
tended for  cargo.  Though  originally  intended  for  the 
Eastern  trade,  this  vessel  was  eventually  placed  on 
the  Liverpool  and  Philadelphia  line,  and  her  working 
proved  so  satisfactory  that  five  more  vessels  were  or- 


*  A  full  account  is  given  in  the  Illustrated  London  News  of  the 
21st  of  October,  1868,  with  illustrations,  of  the  raising  of  the  Wolf; 
and  another,  more  scientific,  is  given  in  the  Engineer  of  the  16th  of 
October  of  the  same  vear. 


316  Ship-building  in  Belfast 

dered,  like  her,  which  were  chartered  to  the  American 
Company. 

The  Liverpool  agents,  Messrs.  Richardson,  Spence, 
&  Co.,  having  purchased  the  Cunard  steamer  Russia, 
sent  her  over  to  us  to  be  lengthened  seventy  feet,  and 
entirely  refitted — another  proof  of  the  rapid  change 
which  owners  of  merchant -ships  now  found  it  neces- 
sary to  adopt  in  view  of  the  requirements  of  modern 
traffic. 

Another  Liverpool  firm,  the  Messrs.  T.  &  J.  Brock- 
lebank,  of  world-wide  repute  for  their  fine  East-India- 
men,  having  given  up  building  for  themselves  at  their 
yard  at  Whitehaven,  commissioned  us  to  build  for 
them  the  Alexandria  and  Baroda,  which  were  shortly 
followed  by  the  Candahar  and  Tenasserim.  And, 
continuing  to  have  a  faith  in  the  future  of  big  iron 
sailing-ships,  they  further  employed  us  to  build  for 
them  two  of  yet  greater  tonnage,  the  Belfast  and  the 
Majestic. 

Indeed,  there  is  a  future  for  sailing-ships,  notwith- 
standing the  recent  development  of  steam  -  power. 
Sailing-ships  can  still  hold  their  own,  especially  in  the 
transport  of  heavy  merchandise  for  great  distances. 
They  can  be  built  more  cheaply  than  steamers  ;  they 
can  be  worked  more  economically,  because  they  re- 
quire no  expenditure  on  coal,  nor  on  wages  of  engi- 
neers; besides,  the  space  occupied  in  steamers  by  ma- 
chinery is  entirely  occupied  by  merchandise,  all  of 
which  pays  its  quota  of  freight.  Another  thing  may 
be  mentioned  ;  the  telegraph  enables  the  fact  of  the 
sailing  of  a  vessel,  with  its  cargo  on  board,  to  be  com- 
municated from  Calcutta  or  San  Francisco  to  Liver- 
pool, and  from  that  moment  the  cargo  becomes  as 
marketable  as  if  it  were  on  the  spot.  There  are  cases, 
indeed,  where  the  freight  by  sailing-ship  is  even  great- 
er than  by  steamer,  as  the  charge  for  warehousing  at 


Steel  and  Iron  Sailing-ships.  317 

home  is  saved,  and  in  the  meantime  the  cargo  while  at 
sea  is  negotiable. 

We  have,  accordingly,  during  the  last  few  years, 
built  some  of  the  largest  iron  and  steel  sailing-ships 
that  have  ever  gone  to  sea.  The  aim  has  been  to  give 
them  great  carrying  capacity  and  fair  speed,  with  econ- 
omy of  working;  and  the  use  of  steel,  both  in  the  hull 
and  the  rigging,  facilitates  the  attainment  of  these  ob- 
jects. In  1882  and  1883  we  built  and  launched  four 
of  these  steel  and  iron  sailing-ships — the  Walter  H. 
Wilson,  the  W.  J.  Pirrie,  the  Flngal,  and  the  Lord 
Wolseley — each  of  nearly  three  thousand  tons'  regis- 
ter, with  four  masts — the  owners  being  Mr.  Lawther, 
of  Belfast,  Mr.  Martin,  of  Dublin,  and  the  Irish  Ship- 
owners' Company. 

Besides  these  and  other  sailing-ships,  Ave  have  built, 
for  Messrs.  Ismay,  Imrie,  &  Co.,  the  Garfield,  of  two 
thousand  three  hundred  and  forty -seven  registered 
tonnage;  for  Messrs.  Thomas  Dixon  &  Son,  the  Lord 
JDownshire,  two  thousand  three  hundred  and  twenty- 
two  ;  and  for  Messrs.  Bullock's  Bay  Line,  the  Lay  of 
Panama,  two  thousand  three  hundred  and  sixty-five. 

In  1880  we  took  in  another  piece  of  the  land  reclaimed 
by  the  Belfast  Harbor  Trust;  and  there,  in  close  prox- 
imity to  the  shipyard,  we  manufacture  all  the  machin- 
ery required  for  tiie  service  of  the  steamers  constructed 
by  our  firm.  In  this  way  we  are  able  to  do  every- 
thing "within  ourselves;"  and  the  whole  land  now  oc- 
cupied by  the  works  comprises  about  forty  acres,  with 
ten  building-slips  suitable  for  the  largest  vessels. 

It  remains  for  me  to  mention  a  Belfast  firm  which 
has  done  much  for  the  town.  I  mean  the  Messrs. 
J.  P.  Corry  &  Co.,  who  have  always  been  among  our 
best  friends.  "We  built  for  them  their  first  iron  sail- 
in  g-vessel,  the  Jane  Porter,  in  1860,  and  since  then  they 
have  never  failed  us.     They  successfully  established 


318  Ship-ouilding  in  Belfast. 

their  "Star"  line  of  sailing-clippers  from  London  to 
Calcutta,  all  of  which  were  built  here.  They  subse- 
quently gave  us  orders  for  yet  larger  vessels,  in  the 
Star  of  France  and  the  Star  of  Italy.  In  all,  we  have 
built  for  that  firm  eleven  of  their  well-known  "  Star  " 
ships. 

We  have  built  five  ships  for  the  Asiatic  Steam  Nav- 
igation Company,  Limited,  each  of  from  one  thousand 
six  hundred  and  fifty  to  two  thousand  and  fifty-nine 
tons  gross ;  and  we  are  now  building  for  them  two 
ships,  each  of  about  three  thousand  tons  gross.  In 
1883  we  launched  thirteen  iron  and  steel  vessels,  of  a 
registered  tonnage  of  over  thirty  thousand  tons.  Out 
of  eleven  ships  now  building  seven  are  of  steel. 

Such  is  a  brief  and  summary  account  of  the  means 
by  which  we  have  been  enabled  to  establish  a  new 
branch  of  industry  in  Belfast.  It  has  been  accom- 
plished simply  by  energy  and  hard  work.  We  have 
been  well  supported  by  the  skilled  labor  of  our  arti- 
sans; we  have  been  backed  by  the  capital  and  the  en- 
terprise of  England;  and  we  believe  that  if  all  true 
patriots  would  go  and  do  likewise  there  would  be 
nothing  to  fear  for  the  prosperity  and  success  of  Ire- 
land. 


CHAPTER  XII. 
ASTRONOMERS  AND  STUDENTS  IN  HUMBLE  LIFE, 

A    UTETV    CHAPTER    IX    THE     "  PURSUIT     OF    KNOWLEDGE 
UXDER    DIFFICULTIES." 

"I  first  learned  to  read  when  the  masons  were  at  work  in  your 
house.  I  approached  them  one  day,  and  observed  that  the  architect 
used  a  rule  and  compass,  and  that  he  made  calculations.  I  inquired 
what  might  be  the  meaning  and  use  of  these  things,  and  I  was  in- 
formed that  there  was  a  science  called  arithmetic.  I  purchased  a 
book  of  arithmetic,  and  I  learned  it.  I  was  told  there  was  another 
science  called  geometry ;  I  bought  the  necessary  books,  and  I  learned 
geometry.  By  reading  I  found  there  were  good  books  in  these  two 
sciences  in  Latin ;  I  bought  a  dictionary,  and  I  learned  Latin.  I  un- 
derstood, also,  that  there  were  good  books  of  the  same  kind  in  French ; 
I  bought  a  dictionary,  and  I  learned  French.  It  seems  to  me  that 
one  does  not  need  to  know  anything  more  than  the  twenty-four  letters 
to  learn  everything  else  that  one  wishes." — Edmund  Stone  to  the 
Duke  of  Argyll  ("Pursuit  of  Knowledge  under  Difficulties"). 

"The  British  census  proper  reckons  twenty-seven  and  a  half  mill- 
ions in  the  home  countries.  What  makes  this  census  important  is  the 
quality  of  the  units  that  compose  it.  They  are  free,  forcible  men,  in 
a  country  where  life  is  safe,  and  has  reached  the  greatest  value.  They 
give  the  bias  to  the  current  age ;  and  that  not  by  chance  or  by  mass, 
but  by  their  character,  and  by  the  number  of  individuals  among  them 
of  personal  ability." — Emerson  :   "English  Traits." 

From  Belfast  to  the  Highlands  of  Scotland  is  an 
easy  route  by  steamers  and  railways.  While  at  Bir- 
nam,  near  Dunkeld,  I  was  reminded  of  some  remarka- 
ble characters  in  the  neighborhood.  After  the  publi- 
cation of  the  "Scotch  Naturalist "  and  "Robert  Dick," 
I  received  numerous  letters  informing  me  of  many 
self-taught  botanists  and  students  of  nature,  quite  as 


320  Astronomers  and  Students. 

interesting  as  the  subjects  of  my  memoirs.  Among 
others  there  was  Edward  Duncan,  the  botanist  weaver 
of  Aberdeen,  whose  interesting  life  has  since  been  done 
justice  to  by  Mr.  Jolly,  and  John  Sim,  of  Perth,  first 
a  shepherd  boy,  then  a  soldier,  and  towards  the  close 
of  his  life  a  poet  and  a  botanist,  whose  life,  I  was  told, 
was  "as  interesting  as  a  romance." 

There  was,  also,  Alexander  Croall,  Custodian  of  the 
Smith  Institute,  at  Stirling,  an  admirable  naturalist 
and  botanist.  He  was  originally  a  hard-working  par- 
ish schoolmaster  near  Montrose.  During  his  holiday 
wanderings  he  collected  plants  for  his  extensive  her- 
barium. His  accomplishments  having  come  under  the 
notice  of  the  late  Sir  William  Hooker,  he  was  selected 
by  that  gentleman  to  prepare  sets  of  the  Plants  of 
Braemar  for  the  queen  and  Prince  Albert,  which  he 
did  to  their  entire  sat  i-t'aetion.  He  gave  up  his  school- 
mastership  for  an  ill-paid  but  more  congenial  occupa- 
tion, that  of  librarian  to  the  Derby  Museum  and  Her- 
barium. Some  years  ago  he  was  appointed  to  his  pres- 
ent position  of  Custodian  to  the  Smith  Institute,  perhaps 
tlie  best  provincial  museum  and  art  gallery  in  Scotland. 

I  could  not,  however,  enter  into  the  history  of  these 
remarkable  persons,  though  I  understand  there  is  a 
probability  of  Mr.  Croall  giving  his  scientific  recol- 
lections to  the  world.  He  has  already  brought  out  a 
beautiful  work,  in  four  volumes,  "British  Seaweeds, 
Nature-printed,"  and  anything  connected  with  his  bi- 
ography will  be  looked  forward  to  with  interest. 

Among  the  other  persons  brought  to  my  notice  years 
ago  were  astronomers  in  humble  life.  For  instance,  I 
received  a  letter  from  John  Grierson,  keeper  of  the 
Girdleness  Lighthouse,  near  Aberdeen,  mentioning  one 
of  these  persons  as  "  an  extraordinary  character." 
"William  Ballingall,"  he  said,  "is  a  weaver  in  the 
town  of  Lower  Largo,  Fifeshire,  and  from  his  early 


John  Robertson.  321 


days  he  has  made  astronomy  the  subject  of  passionate 
study.  I  used  to  spend  my  school  vacation  at  Largo, 
and  have  frequently  heard  him  expound  upon  his  fa- 
vorite subject.  I  believe  that  very  high  opinions  have 
been  expressed  by  scientific  gentlemen  regarding  Bal- 
lingall's  attainments.  They  were  no  doubt  surprised 
that  an  individual  with  but  a  very  limited  amount  of 
education,  and  whose  hours  of  labor  were  from  five  in 
the  morning  until  ten  or  eleven  at  night,  should  be  able 
to  acquire  so  much  knowledge  on  so  profound  a  sub- 
ject. Had  he  possessed  a  fair  amount  of  education, 
and  an  assortment  of  scientific  instruments  and  books, 
the  world  would  have  heard  more  about  him.  Should 
you  ever  find  yourself,"  my  correspondent  concludes, 
"  in  his  neighborhood,  and  have  a  few  hours  to  spare, 
you  would  have  no  reason  to  regret  the  time  spent  in 
his  company."  I  could  not,  however,  arrange  to  pay 
the  proposed  visit  to  Largo,  but  I  found  that  I  could, 
without  inconvenience,  visit  another  astronomer  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Dunkeld. 

In  January,  1879,  I  received  a  letter  from  Sheriff 
Barclay,  of  Perth,  to  the  following  effect:  "Knowing 
the  deep  interest  you  take  in  genius  and  merit  in  hum- 
ble ranks,  I  beg  to  state  to  you  an  extraordinary  case. 
John  Robertson  is  a  railway  porter  at  Coupar  Angus 
station.  From  early  youth  he  has  made  the  heavens 
his  study.  Night  after  night  he  looks  above,  and  from 
his  small  earnings  he  has  provided  himself  with  a  tele- 
scope which  cost  him  about  £30.  He  sends  notices  of 
his  observations  to  the  scientific  journals  under  the 
modest  initials  of  "  J.  R."  Lie  is  a  great  favorite  with 
the  public,  and  it  is  said  that  he  has  made  some  obser- 
vations in  celestial  phenomena  not  before  noticed. 
It  does  occur  to  me  that  he  should  have  a  wider  field 
for  his  favorite  study.  In  connection  with  an  observa- 
tory his  services  would  be  invaluable." 


322  Astronomers  and  Students. 

Nearly  five  years  had  elapsed  since  the  receipt  of 
this  letter,  and  I  had  done  nothing  to  put  myself  in 
communication  with  the  Coupar  Angus  astronomer. 
Strange  to  say,  his  existence  was  again  recalled  to  my 
notice  by  Professor  Grainger  Stewart,  of  Edinburgh. 
He  Baid  that  if  I  was  in  the  neighborhood  I  ought  to 
call  upon  him,  and  that  he  would  receive  me  kindly. 
His  duty,  he  Baid,  was  to  act  as  porter  at  the  station, 
and  to  shout  the  name  of  the  place  as  the  trains  passed. 
I  wrote  to  John  Robertson  accordingly,  and  received 
a  reply  stating  that  he  would  be  glad  to  see  me,  and 
enclosing  a  photograph,  in  which  I  recognized  a  good, 
honest,  Bensible  face,  with  his  person  enclosed  in  the 
usual  Btation  porter's  garb,  "C.R.  1446." 

I  started  from  Dunkeld,  and  reached  Coupar  Angus 
in  due  time.  As  I  approached  the  station,  1  heard  the 
porter  calling  oat  "Conpar  Angus!  change  here  for 
Blairgowrie!"*  It  was  the  voice  of  John  Robertson. 
I  descended  from  the  train,  and  addressed  him  at  once; 
after  the  photograph  there  could  be  IIO  mistaking  him. 

*  A  "poet"  who  dates  from  "  New  York,  March,  L888,"  lias  pub- 
lished seven  stanzas,  entitled  ''Change  here  for  Blairgowrie,"  from 
which  we  take  the  following: 

'•  From  early  morn  till  late  at  e'en 
John's  honest  face  is  to  be  seen, 
Bustling  about  the  trains  between, 

Be  't  sunshine  or  be  't  showery  ; 
And  as  each  one  stops  at  his  door, 
He  greets  it  with  the  well-known  roar 

Of  'Change  here  for  Blairgowrie.' 

"Even  when  the  still  and  drowsy  night 
Has  drawn  the  curtains  of  our  sight, 
John's  watchful  eyes  become  more  bright, 

And  take  another  glow'r  aye 
Through  yon  blue  dome  of  sparkling  stars, 
Where  Venus  bright  and  ruddy  Mars 

Shine  down  upon  Blairgowrie. 


Lectures  hy  Dr.  Dick.  323 

An  arrangement  for  a  meeting  was  made,  and  he  called 
ujDon  me  in  the  evening.  I  invited  him  to  such  hospi- 
tality as  the  inn  afforded,  but  he  would  have  nothing. 
"I  am  much  obliged  to  you,"  he  said;  "but  it  always 
does  me  harm."  I  knew  at  once  what  the  "  it "  meant. 
Then  he  invited  me  to  his  house  in  Cause  way  end  Street. 
I  found  his  cottage  clean  and  comfortable,  presided  over 
by  an  evidently  clever  wife.  He  took  me  into  his  sit- 
ting-room, where  I  inspected  his  drawings  of  the  sun- 
spots,  made  in  color  on  a  large  scale.  In  all  his  state- 
ments he  was  perfectly  modest  and  unpretending.  The 
following  is  his  story,  so  far  as  I  can  recollect,  in  his 
own  words: 

"  Yes,  I  certainly  take  a  great  interest  in  astronomy, 
but  I  have  done  nothing  in  it  worthy  of  notice.  I  am 
scarcely  worthy  to  be  called  a  day-laborer  in  the  sci- 
ence. I  am  very  well  known  hereabouts,  especially  to 
the  travelling  public;  but  I  must  say  that  they  think 
a  great  deal  more  of  me  than  I  deserve. 

"What  made  me  first  devote  my  attention  to  the 
subject  of  astronomy?  Well,  if  I  can  trace  it  to  one 
thing  more  than  another,  it  was  to  some  evening  lect- 
ures delivered  by  the  late  Dr.  Dick,  of  Broughty  Fer- 
ry, to  the  men  employed  at  the  Craigs'  Bleachfield 
Works,  near  Montrose,  where  I  then  worked,  about 
the  year  1848.  Dr.  Dick  was  an  excellent  lecturer, 
and  I  listened  to  him  with  attention.  His  instructions 
were  fully  impressed  upon  our  minds  by  Mr.  Cooper, 
the  teacher  of  the  evening  school,  which  I  attended. 

"He  kens  each  jinkin'  comet's  track, 
And  when  it's  likely  to  come  back, 
When  they  have  tails,  and  when  they  lack — 

In  heaven  the  waggish  power  aye  ; 
When  Jupiter's  belt-buckle  hings, 
And  the  Pyx  mark  on  Saturn's  rings, 

He  sees  from  near  Blairgowrie." 


324  Astronomers  and  Students. 

After  giving  the  young  lads  employed  at  the  works 
their  lessons  in  arithmetic,  he  would  come  out  with  us 
into  the  night — and  it  was  generally  late  when  we  sep- 
arated— and  show  us  the  principal  constellations  and 
the  planets  above  the  horizon.  It  was  a  wonderful 
sight ;  yet  we  were  told  that  these  hundreds  upon  hun- 
dreds of  stars,  as  far  as  the  eye  could  see,  were  but  a 
mere  vestige  of  the  creation  amid  which  we  lived.  I 
got  to  know  the  names  of  some  of  the  constellations — 
the  Greater  Bear,  with  'the  pointers'  which  pointed 
to  the  Pole  Star,  Orion  with  his  belt,  the  Twins,  the 
Pleiades,  and  other  prominent  objects  in  the  heav- 
ens. It  was  a  source  of  constant  wonder  and  sur- 
prise. 

"  When  I  left  the  Bleachfi eld  works  I  went  to  Inver- 
ary,  to  the  North  of  Scotland  Railway,  which  was  then 
in  course  of  construction,  and  for  many  years  being 
immersed  in  work,  I  thought  comparatively  little  of 
astronomy.  It  remained,  however,  a  pleasant  memory. 
It  was  only  after  coming  to  this  neighborhood,  in  1854, 
when  the  railway  to  Blairgowrie  was  under  construc- 
tion, that  I  began  to  read  up  a  little,  during  my  leis- 
ure hours,  on  the  subject  of  astronomy.  I  got  mar- 
ried the  year  after,  since  which  time  I  have  lived  in 
this  house. 

"I  became  a  member  of  a  reading-room  club,  and 
read  all  the  works  of  Dr.  Dick  that  the  library  con- 
tained— his  '  Treatise  on  the  Solar  System,'  his  '  Prac- 
tical Astronomer,'  and  other  works.  There  were,  also, 
some  very  good  popular  works  to  which  I  was  indebt- 
ed for  amusement  as  well  as  instruction — Chambers's 
'  Information  for  the  People,'  Cassell's  '  Popular  Edu- 
cator,' and  a  very  interesting  series  of  articles  in  the 
Leisure  Sour,  by  Edwin  Dunkin,  of  the  Royal  Ob- 
servatory, Greenwich.  These  last  papers  were  accom- 
panied by  maps  of  the  chief  constellations,  so  that  I 


Buying  a  Telescope.  325 

had  a  renewed  opportunity  of  becoming  a  little  better 
acquainted  with  the  geography  of  the  heavens. 

"  I  began  to  have  a  wish  for  a  telescope,  by  means 
of  which  I  might  be  able  to  see  a  little  more  than  with 
my  naked  eyes.  But  I  found  that  I  could  not  get  any- 
thing of  much  use  short  of  £20.  I  could  not  for  a  long 
time  feel  justified  in  spending  so  much  money  for 
my  own  personal  enjoyment.  My  children  were  then 
young,  and  dependent  upon  me.  They  required  to 
attend  school,  for  education  is  a  thing  that  parents 
must  not  neglect,  with  a  view  to  the  future.  How- 
ever, about  the  year  1875,  my  attention  was  called  to  a 
cheap  instrument  advertised  by  Solomon  —  what  he 
called  his  '£5  telescope.'  I  purchased  one,  and  it  tan- 
talized me;  for  the  power  of  the  instrument  was  such 
as  to  teach  me  nothing  of  the  surface  of  the  planets. 
After  using  it  for  about  two  years,  I  sold  it  to  a  stu- 
dent, and  then  found  that  I  had  accumulated  enough 
savings  to  enable  me  to  buy  my  present  instrument. 
Will  you  come  into  the  next  room  and  look  at  it  ?" 

I  went,  accordingly,  into  the  adjoining  room,  and 
looked  at  the  new  telescope.  It  was  taken  from  its 
case,  put  upon  its  tripod,  and  looked  in  beautiful  con- 
dition. It  is  a  refractor,  made  by  Cooke  &  Sons,  of 
York.  The  object-glass  is  three  inches;  the  focal 
length  forty  -  three  inches ;  and  the  telescope,  when 
drawn  out,  with  the  pancratic  eye-piece  attached,  is 
about  four  feet.  It  was  made  after  Mr.  Robertson's 
directions,  and  is  a  sort  of  combination  of  instru- 
ments. 

"  Even  that  instrument,"  he  proceeded,  "  good  as  it 
is  for  the  money,  tantalizes  me  yet.  A  look  through  a 
fixed  equatorial,  such  as  every  large  observatory  is 
furnished  with,  is  a  glorious  view.  I  shall  never  for- 
get the  sight  that  I  got  when  at  Dunecht  Observatory, 
to  which  I  was  invited  through  the  kindness  of  Dr. 


326  Astronomers  and  Students. 

Copeland,  the  Earl  of  Crawford  and  Balcarres'  prin- 
cipal astronomer. 

"  You  ask  me  what  I  have  done  in  astronomical  re- 
search. I  am  sorry  to  say  I  have  been  able  to  do  little 
except  to  gratify  my  own  curiosity;  and  even  then,  as 
I  say,  I  have  been  much  tantalized.  I  have  watched 
the  spots  on  the  sun  from  day  to  day  through  obscured 
glasses  since  the  year  1878,  and  made  many  drawings 
of  them.  Mr.  Rand  Capron,  the  astronomer,  of  Guil- 
down,  Guilford,  desired  to  see  these  drawings,  and  af- 
ter expressing  his  satisfaction'with  them,  he  sent  them 
to  Mr.  Christie,  Astronomer  Royal,  Greenwich.  Al- 
though photographs  of  the  solar  surface  were  pre- 
ferred, Mr.  Capron  thought  that  my  sketches  might 
supply  gaps  in  the  partially  cloudy  days,  as  well  as 
details  which  might  not  appear  on  the  photographic 
plates.  I  received  a  very  kind  letter  from  Mr.  Chris- 
tie, in  which  he  said  that  it  would  be  very  difficult  to 
make  the  results  obtained  from  drawings,  however  ac- 
curate, at  all  comparable  with  those  derived  from  pho- 
tographs, especially  as  regards  the  accurate  size  of  the 
spots  as  compared  with  the  diameter  of  the  sun.  And 
no  doubt  he  is  right. 

"  What,  do  I  suppose,  is  the  cause  of  these  spots  in 
the  sun  ?  "Well,  that  is  a  very  difficult  question  to  an- 
swer. Changes  are  constantly  going  on  at  the  sun's 
surface,  or,  I  may  rather  say,  in  the  sun's  interior,  and 
making  themselves  apparent  at  the  surface.  Some- 
times they  go  on  with  enormous  activity ;  at  other 
times  they  are  more  quiet.  They  recur  alternately,  in 
periods  of  seven  or  eight  weeks,  while  these  again  are 
also  subject  to  a  period  of  about  eleven  years — that  is, 
the  short  recurring  outbursts  go  on  for  some  years, 
when  they  attain  a  maximum,  from  which  they  go  on 
decreasing.  I  may  say  that  we  are  now  (August,  1883) 
at,  or  very  near,  a  maximum  epoch.     There  is  no  doubt 


Sun-Spots.  327 

that  this  period  has  an  intimate  connection  with  our 
auroral  displays  ;  but  I  don't  think  that  the  influence 
sun-spots  have  on  light  or  heat  is  perceptible.  What- 
ever influence  they  possess  would  be  felt  alike  on  the 
whole  terrestrial  globe.  We  have  wet,  dry,  cold,  and 
warm  years,  but  they  are  never  general.  The  kind  of 
season  which  prevails  in  one  country  is  often  quite  re- 
versed in  another — perhaps  in  the  adjacent  one.  Not 
so  with  our  auroral  displays.  They  are  universal  on 
both  sides  of  the  globe,  and  from  pole  to  pole  the  mag- 
netic needle  trembles  during  their  continuance.  Some 
authorities  are  of  opinion  that  these  eleven-year  cycles 
are  subject  to  a  larger  cycle,  but  sun-spot  observations 
have  not  existed  long  enough  to  determine  this  point. 
For  myself,  I  have  a  great  difficulty  in  forming  an 
opinion.  I  have  very  little  doubt  that  the  spots  are 
depressions  on  the  surface  of  the  sun.  This  is  more 
apparent  when  the  spot  is  on  the  limb.  I  have  often 
seen  the  edge  very  rugged  and  uneven  when  groups 
of  large  spots  were  about  to  come  round  on  the  east 
side.  I  have  communicated  some  of  my  observations 
to  The  Observatory,  the  monthly  review  of  astrono- 
my, edited  by  Mr.  Christie,  now  astronomer  royal,* 
as  well  as  to  The  Scotsman,  and  some  of  our  local  pa- 
pers.f 

*  The  Observatory,  No.  61,  p.  146,  and  No.  68,  p.  371. 

t  In  an  article  on  the  subject  in  the  Dundee  Evening  Telegraph, 
Mr.  Robertson  observes  :  "  If  our  finite  minds  were  more  capable 
of  comprehension,  what  a  glorious  view  of  the  grandeur  of  the  Deity 
wrould  be  displayed  to  us  in  the  contemplation  of  the  centre  and  source 
of  light  and  heat  to  the  solar  system.  The  force  requisite  to  pour 
such  continuous  floods  to  the  remotest  parts  of  the  system  must  ever 
baffle  the  mind  of  man  to  grasp.  But  we  are  not  to  sit  down  in  indo- 
lence ;  our  duty  is  to  inquire  into  Nature's  works,  though  we  can 
never  exhaust  the  field.  Our  minds  cannot  imagine  motion  without 
some  power  moving  through  the  medium  of  some  subordinate  agency, 
ever  acting  on  the  sun,  to  send  such  floods  of  light  and  heat  to  our 


328  Astronomers  and  Students. 

"I  have  also  taken  up  the  observation  of  variable 
stars  in  a  limited  portion  of  the  heavens.  That  and 
c  hunting  for  comets '  is  about  all  the  real  astronomical 
work  that  an  amateur  can  do  nowadays  in  our  climate, 
with  a  three -inch  telescope.  I  am  greatly  indebted 
to  the  Earl  of  Crawford  and  Balcarres,  who  regularly 
sends  me  circulars  of  all  astronomical  discoveries,  both 
in  this  and  foreign  countries.  I  will  give  an  instance 
of  the  usefulness  of  these  circulars.  On  the  morning 
of  the  4th  of  October,  1880,  a  comet  was  discovered  by 
Hartwig,  of  Strasburg,  in  the  constellation  of  Corona. 
He  telegraphed  it  to  Dunecht  Observatory,  fifteen  miles 
from  Aberdeen.  The  circulars  announcing  the  dis- 
covery were  printed  and  despatched  by  post  to  various 
astronomers.  My  circular  reached  me  by  7  p.m.,  and, 
the  night  being  favorable,  I  directed  my  telescope  upon 
the  part  of  the  heavens  indicated,  and  found  the  comet 
almost  at  once — that  is,  within  fifteen  hours  of  the  date 
of  its  discovery  at  Strasburg. 

"In  April,  18*78,  a  large  meteor  was  observed  in 
broad  daylight,  passing  from  south  to  north,  and  fall- 
ing, it  was  supposed,  about  twenty  miles  south  of  Bal- 
later.  Mr.  A.  S.  Herschel,  Professor  of  Physics  in  the 
College  of  Science,  Newcastle-on-Tyne,  published  a 
letter  in  The  Scotsman,  intimating  his  desire  to  be  in- 
formed of  the  particulars  of  the  meteor's  flight  by  those 
who  had  seen  it.  As  I  was  one  of  those  who  had  ob- 
served the  splendid  meteor  flash  northwards  almost 
under  the  face  of  the  bright  sun  (at  10.25  a.m.),  I  sent 
the  professor  a  full  account  of  what  I  had  seen,  for 

otherwise  cold  and  dark  terrestrial  ball ;  but  it  is  the  overwhelming 
magnitude  of  such  power  that  we  are  incapable  of  comprehending. 
The  agency  necessary  to  throw  out  the  floods  of  flame  seen  during  the 
few  moments  of  a  total  eclipse  of  the  sun,  and  the  power  requisite  to 
burst  open  a  cavity  in  its  surface  such  as  could  entirely  engulf  our 
earth,  will  ever  set  all  the  thinking  capacity  of  man  at  nought." 


A  Contented  Man.  329 

which  he  professed  his  strong  obligations.  This  led  to 
a  very  pleasant  correspondence  with  Professor  Her- 
schel.  After  this  I  devoted  considerable  attention  to 
meteors,  and  sent  many  contributions  to  The  Observa- 
tory on  the  subject.* 

"You  ask  me  what  are  the  hours  at  which  I  make 
my  observations  ?  I  am  due  at  the  railway  station  at 
six  in  the  morning,  and  I  leave  at  six  in  the  evening; 
but  I  have  two  hours  during  the  day  for  meals  and 
rest.  Sometimes  I  get  a  glance  at  the  heavens  in  the 
winter  mornings  when  the  sky  is  clear,  hunting  for 
comets.  My  observations  on  the  sun  are  usually  made 
twice  a  day,  during  my  meal  hours,  or  in  the  early 
morning  or  late  at  evening  in  summer,  while  the  sun  is 
visible.  Yes,  you  are  right;  I  try  and  make  the  best 
use  of  my  time.  It  is  much  too  short  for  all  that  I 
propose  to  do.  My  evenings  are  my  own.  When  the 
heavens  are  clear,  I  watch  them ;  when  obscured,  there 
are  my  books  and  letters. 

"  Dr.  Alexander  Brown,  of  Arbroath,  is  one  of  my 
correspondents.  I  have  sent  him  my  drawings  of  the 
rings  of  Saturn,  of  Jupiter's  belt  and  satellites.  Dr. 
Ralph  Copeland,  of  Dunecht,  is  also  a  very  good  friend 
and  adviser.  Occasionally,  too,  I  send  accounts  of  solar 
disturbances,  comets  within  sight,  eclipses,  and  occupa- 
tions to  the  Scotsman,  the  Dundee  Evening  Telegraph 
and  Evening  News,  or  to  the  Blairgowrie  Advertiser. 
Besides,  I  am  the  local  observer  of  meteorology,  and 
communicate  regularly  with  Mr.  Symonds.  These 
things  entirely  fill  up  my  time. 

"Do  I  intend  always  to  remain  a  railway  porter? 
Oh,  yes;  I  am  very  comfortable!  The  company  are 
very  kind  to  me,  and  I  hope  I  serve  them  faithfully. 
It  is  true  Sheriff  Barclay  has,  without  my  knowledge, 

*  The  Observatory,  Nos.  34,  42,  45,  49,  and  58. 


330  Astronomers  and  Students. 

recommended  me  to  several  well-known  astronomers 
as  an  observer.  But  at  my  time  of  life  changes  are 
not  to  be  desired.  I  am  quite  satisfied  to*  go  on  as  I 
am  doing.  My  young  people  are  growing  up,  and  are 
willing  to  work  for  themselves.  But  come,  sir,"  he 
concluded,  "  come  into  the  garden,  and  look  at  the 
moon  through  my  telescope." 

We  went  into  the  garden  accordingly,  but  a  cloud 
was  over  the  moon,  and  we  could  not  see  it.  At  the 
top  of  the  garden  was  the  self-registering  barometer, 
the  pitcher  to  measure  the  rainfall,  and  the  other  ap- 
paratus necessary  to  enable  the  "  diagram  of  barome- 
ter, thermometer,  rain,  and  wind  "  to  be  conducted,  so 
far  as  Coupar  Angus  is  concerned.  This  Mr.  Robert- 
son has  done  for  four  years  past.  As  the  hour  was 
late,  and  as  I  knew  that  my  entertainer  must  be  up  by 
six  next  morning,  I  took  my  leave. 

A  man's  character  often  exhibits  itself  in  his  amuse- 
ments. One  must  have  a  high  respect  for  the  character 
of  John  Robertson,  who  looks  at  the  manner  in  which 
he  spends  his  spare  time.  His  astronomical  work  is 
altogether  a  labor  of  love.  It  is  his  hobby;  and  the 
working-man  may  have  his  hobby  as  well  as  the  rich. 
In  his  case  he  is  never  less  idle  than  when  idle.  Some 
may  think  that  he  is  casting  his  bread  upon  the  waters, 
and  that  he  may  find  it  after  many  days.  Bat  it  is 
not  with  this  object  that  he  carries  on  his  leisure-hour 
pursuits.  Some  have  tried — Sheriff  Barclay  among 
others* — to  obtain  appointments  for  him  in  connection 
with  astronomical  observation;  others  to  secure  ad- 
vancement for  him  in  his  own  line.  But  he  is  a  man 
who  is  satisfied  with  his  lot — one  of  the  rarest  things 
on  earth.  Perhaps  it  is  by  looking  so  much  up  to  the 
heavens  that  he  has  obtained  his  portion  of  contentment. 

*  We  regret  to  say  that  Sheriff  Barclay  died  a  few  months  ago, 
greatly  respected  by  all  who  knew  him. 


Thomas  Cooke.  331 


Next  morning  I  found  him  busy  at  the  station,  mak- 
ing arrangements  for  the  departure  of  the  passenger 
train  for  Perth,  and  evidently  upon  the  best  of  terms 
with  everybody.  And  here  I  leave  John  Robertson, 
the  contented  Coupar  Angus  astronomer. 

Some  years  ago  I  received  from  my  friend  Mr. 
Nasmyth  a  letter  of  introduction  to  the  late  Mr.  Cooke, 
of  York,  while  the  latter  was  still  living.  I  did  not 
present  it  at  the  time;  but  I  now  proposed  to  visit,  on 
my  return  homewards,  the  establishment  which  he  had 
founded  at  York  for  the  manufacture  of  telescopes 
and  other  optical  instruments.  Indeed,  what  a  man  may 
do  for  himself  as  well  as  for  science  cannot  be  better 
illustrated  than  by  the  life  of  this  remarkable  man. 

Mr.  IsTasmyth  says  that  he  had  an  account  from 
Cooke  himself  of  his  small  beginnings.  He  was  orig- 
inally a  shoemaker  in  a  small  country  village.  Many 
a  man  has  risen  to  distinction  from  a  shoemaker's  seat. 
Bulwer,  in  his  "  What  will  He  do  with  It  ?"  has  dis- 
cussed the  difference  between  shoemakers  and  tailors. 
The  one  is  thrown  upon  his  own  resources,  the  other 
works  in  the  company  of  his  fellows:  the  one  thinks, 
the  other  communicates. 

Cooke  was  a  man  of  natural  ability,  and  he  made  the 
best  use  of  his  powers.  Opportunity,  sooner  or  later, 
comes  to  nearly  all  who  work  and  wait,  and  are  duly 
persevering.  Shoemaking  was  not  found  very  pro- 
ductive; and  Cooke,  being  fairly  educated  as  well  as 
self-educated,  opened  a  village  school.  He  succeeded 
tolerably  well.  He  taught  himself  geometry  and 
mathematics,  and  daily  application  made  him  more  per- 
fect in  his  studies.  In  course  of  time  an  extraordinary 
ambition  took  possession  of  him:  no  less  than  the  con- 
struction of  a  reflecting  telescoj>e  of  six  inches'  diame- 
ter.    The  idea  would  not  let  him  rest  until  he  had 


332  Astronomers  and  Students. 

accomplished  his  purpose.  He  cast  and  polished  the 
speculum  with  great  labor;  but  just  as  he  was  about  to 
finish  it,  the  casting  broke.  What  was  to  be  done  ? 
About  one  fifth  had  broken  away,  but  still  there  re- 
mained a  large  piece,  which  he  proceeded  to  grind 
down  to  a  proper  diameter.  His  perseverance  was  re- 
warded by  the  possession  of  a  three  and  a  half  inch 
speculum,  which  by  his  rare  skill  he  worked  into  a  re- 
flecting telescope  of  very  good  quality. 

He  was,  however,  so  much  annoyed  by  the  treacher- 
ously brittle  nature  of  the  speculum  metal  that  he 
abandoned  its  use,  and  betook  himself  to  glass.  He 
found  that  before  he  could  make  a  good  achromatic 
telescope  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  calculate  his 
curves  from  data  depending  upon  the  nature  of  the 
glass.  He  accordingly  proceeded  to  study  the  optical 
laws  of  refraction,  in  which  his  knowledge  of  geometry 
and  mathematics  greatly  helped  him.  And  in  course 
of  time,  by  his  rare  and  exquisite  manipulative  skill, 
he  succeeded  in  constructing  a  four-inch  refractor,  or 
achromatic  telescope,  of  admirable  defining  power. 

The  excellence  of  his  first  works  became  noised 
abroad.  Astronomical  observers  took  an  interest  in 
him;  and  friends  began  to  gather  round  him,  among 
others  the  late  Professor  Phillips  and  the  Rev. Vernon 
Harcourt,  Dean  of  York.  Cooke  received  an  order  for 
a  telescope  like  his  own;  then  he  received  other  orders. 
At  last  he  gave  up  teaching,  and  took  to  telescope- 
making.  He  advanced  step  by  step;  and  like  a  prac- 
tical, thoughtful  man,  he  invented  special  tools  and 
machinery  for  the  purpose  of  grinding  and  polishing 
his  glasses.  He  opened  a  shop  in  York,  and  established 
himself  as  a  professed  maker  of  telescopes.  He  added 
to  this  the  business  of  a  general  optician,  his  wife  at- 
tending to  the  sale  in  the  shop,  while  he  himself  at- 
tended to  the  workshop. 


Cookers  Telescopes.  333 

Such  was  the  excellence  of  his  work  that  the  demand 
for  his  telescopes  largely  increased.  They  were  not 
only  better  manufactured,  but  greatly  cheaper  than 
those  which  had  before  been  in  common  use.  Three 
of  the  London  makers  had  before  possessed  a  monopoly 
of  the  business;  but  now  the  trade  was  thrown  open 
by  the  enterprise  of  Cooke  of  York.  He  proceeded 
to  erect  a  complete  factory — the  Buckingham  Street 
works.  His  brother  took  charge  of  the  grinding  and 
polishing  of  the  lenses,  while  his  sons  attended  to  the 
mechanism  of  the  workshop;  but  Cooke  himself  was 
the  master  spirit  of  the  whole  concern.  Everything 
that  he  did  was  good  and  accurate.  His  clocks  were 
about  the  best  that  could  be  made.  He  carried  out 
his  clock-making  business  with  the  same  zeal  that  he 
devoted  to  the  perfection  of  his  achromatic  telescopes. 
His  work  was  always  first-rate.  There  was  no  scamp- 
ing about  it.  Everything  that  he  did  was  thoroughly 
good  and  honest.  His  four-and-a-quarter-inch  equa- 
torials  are  perfect  gems;  and  his  admirable  achro- 
matics,  many  of  them  of  the  largest  class,  are  known 
all  over  the  world.  Altogether,  Thomas  Cooke  was  a 
remarkable  instance  of  the  power  of  self-help. 

Such  was  the  story  of  his  life,  as  communicated  by 
Mr.  Nasmyth.  I  was  afterwards  enabled,  through  the 
kind  assistance  of  his  widow,  Mrs.  Cooke,  whom  I  saw 
at  Saltburn,  in  Yorkshire,  to  add  a  few  particulars  to 
his  biography. 

"My  husband,"  she  said,  "was  the  son  of  a  working 
shoemaker  at  Pocklington,  in  the  East  Riding.  He 
was  born  in  1807.  His  father's  circumstances  were  so 
straitened  that  he  was  not  able  to  do  much  for  him, 
but  he  sent  him  to  the  national  school,  where  he  re- 
ceived some  education.  He  remained  there  for  about 
two  years,  and  then  he  was  put  to  his  father's  trade. 
But  he  greatly  disliked  shoemaking,  and  longed  to  get 


334  Astronomers  and  Students. 

away  from  it.  He  liked  the  snn,  the  sky,  and  the  open 
air.  He  was  eager  to  be  a  sailor,  and,  having  heard  of 
the  voyages  of  Captain  Cook,  he  wished  to  go  to  sea. 
He  spent  his  spare  hours  in  learning  navigation,  that 
he  might  be  a  good  seaman.  But  when  Cooke  was 
ready  to  set  out  for  Hull  the  entreaties  and  tears  of 
his  mother  prevailed  on  him  to  give  up  the  project; 
and  then  he  had  to  consider  what  he  should  do  to 
maintain  himself  at  home. 

"  He  proceeded  with  his  self-education,  and,  with 
such  small  aids  as  he  could  procure,  he  gathered  to- 
gether a  good  deal  of  knowledge.  He  thought  that 
he  might  be  able  to  teach  others.  Everybody  liked 
him  for  his  diligence,  his  application,  and  his  good 
sense.  At  the  age  of  seventeen  he  was  employed  to 
teach  the  sons  of  the  neighboring  farmers.  He  suc- 
ceeded so  well  that,  in  the  following  year,  he  opened  a 
village  school  at  Beilby.  He  went  on  educating  him- 
self, and  learned  a  little  of  everything.  He  next  re- 
moved his  school  to  Kirj)cnbeck,  near  Stamford  Bridge, 
and  it  was  there,"  proceeded  Mrs.  Cooke,  "  that  I  got 
to  know  him,  for  I  was  one  of  his  pupils." 

"  He  first  learned  mathematics  by  buying  an  old  vol- 
ume at  a  bookstall  with  a  spare  shilling.  That  was 
before  he  began  to  teach.  He  also  got  odd  sheets,  and 
read  other  books  about  geometry  and  mathematics, 
before  he  could  buy  them,  for  he  had  very  little  to 
spare.  He  studied  and  learned  as  much  as  he  could. 
He  was  very  anxious  to  get  an  insight  into  knowledge. 
He  studied  optics  before  he  had  any  teaching.  Then 
he  tried  to  turn  his  knowledge  to  account.  While  at 
Kirpenbeck  he  made  his  first  object-glass  out  of  a 
thick  tumbler-bottom.  He  ground  the  glass  cleverly 
by  hand;  then  he  got  a  piece  of  tin,  and  soldered  it 
together,  and  mounted  the  object-glass  in  it  so  as  to 
form  a  telescope. 


Economies.  335 


"  He  next  got  a  situation  at  the  Rev.  Mr.  Shapkley's 
school  in  Micklegate,  York,  where  he  taught  mathe- 
matics. He  also  taught  in  ladies'  schools  in  the  city, 
and  did  what  he  could  to  make  a  little  income.  Our 
intimacy  had  increased,  and  we  had  arranged  to  get 
married.  He  was  twenty-four  and  I  was  nineteen 
when  we  were  happily  united.  I  was  then  his  pupil 
for  life. 

"  Professor  Phillips  saw  his  first  telescope,  with  the 
object-glass  made  out  of  the  thick  tumbler-bottom,  and 
he  was  so  much  pleased  with  it  that  my  husband  made 
it  over  to  him.  But  he  also  got  an  order  for  another 
from  Mr.  Gray,  solicitor,  more  by  way  of  encourage- 
ment than  because  Mr.  Gray  wanted  it,  for  he  was  a 
most  kind  man.  The  object-glass  was  of  four-inch  ap- 
erture, and  when  mounted  the  defining  power  was  found 
excellent.  My  husband  was  so  successful  with  his  tel- 
escopes that  he  went  on  from  smaller  to  greater,  and 
at  length  he  began  to  think  of  devoting  himself  to  op- 
tics altogether.  His  knowledge  of  mathematics  had 
led  him  on,  and  friends  were  always  ready  to  encour- 
age him  in  his  pursuits. 

"  During  this  time  he  had  continued  his  teaching  at 
the  school  in  the  daytime,  and  he  also  taught,  on  his 
own  account,  the  sons  of  gentlemen  in  the  evening; 
among  others,  the  sons  of  Dr.  Wake  and  Dr.  Belcomb, 
both  medical  men.  He  was  only  making  about  £100 
a  year,  and  his  family  was  increasing.  It  was  neces- 
sary to  be  very  economical,  and  I  was  careful  of  eve- 
rything. At  length  my  uncle  Milner  agreed  to  ad- 
vance about  £100  as  a  loan.  A  shop  was  taken  in 
Stonegate  in  1836,  and  provided  with  optical  instru- 
ments. I  attended  to  the  shop,  while  my  husband 
worked  in  the  back  premises.  To  bring  in  a  little 
ready  money,  I  also  took  in  lodgers. 

"My  husband  now  devoted  himself  entirely  to  tele- 


336  Astronomers  and  Students. 

scope-making  and  optics.  But  he  took  in  other  work. 
His  pumps  were  considered  excellent,  and  he  furnished 
all  those  used  at  the  pump-room,  Harrogate.  His 
clocks,  telescope-driving*  and  others,  were  of  the  best. 
He  commenced  turret-clock  making  in  1852,  and  made 
many  improvements  in  them.  We  had  by  that  time 
removed  to  Coney  Street ;  and  in  1855  the  Bucking- 
ham Works  were  established,  where  a  large  number 
of  first-rate  workmen  were  employed.  A  place  was 
also  taken  in  Southampton  Street,  London,  in  1868, 
for  the  sale  of  the  instruments  manufactured  at  York." 

Thus  far  Mrs.  Cooke.  It  may  be  added  that  Thom- 
as Cooke  revived  the  art  of  making  refracting  tele- 
scopes in  England.  Since  the  discovery  by  Dollond,  in 
1758,  of  the  relation  between  the  refractive  and  dis- 
persive powers  of  different  kinds  of  glass,  and  the  in- 
vention by  that  distinguished  optician  of  the  achro- 
matic telescope,  the  manufacture  of  that  instrument 
had  been  confined  to  England,  where  the  best  flint- 
glass  was  made.  But,  through  the  short-sighted  pol- 
icy of  the  government,  an  exorbitant  duty  was  placed 
upon  the  manufacture  of  flint-glass,  and  the  English 
trade  was  almost  entirely  stamped  out.  We  had,  ac- 
cordingly, to  look  to  foreign  countries  for  the  further 
improvement  of  the  achromatic  telescope,  which  Dol- 
lond had  so  much  advanced. 

A  humble  mechanic  of  Brenetz,  in  the  Canton  of 
Neufchatel,  Switzerland,  named  Guinaud,  having  di- 
rected his  attention  to  the  manufacture  of  flint-glass 
towards  the  close  of  last  century,  at  length  succeed- 
ed, after  persevering  efforts,  in  producing  masses  of 
that  substance  perfectly  free  from  stain,  and  there- 

*  Sir  E.  Denison  Becket,  in  his  "Rudimentary  Treatise  on 
Clocks  and  Watches  and  Bells,"  has  given  an  instance  of  the  tele- 
scope-driving clock,  invented  by  Mr.  Cooke  (p.  213). 


Achromatic  Telescopes.  337 

fore  adapted  for  the  construction  of  the  object-glasses 
of  telescopes.  Frauenhofer,  the  Bavarian  optician, 
having  just  begun  business,  heard  of  the  wonderful 
success  of  Guinaud,  and  induced  the  Swiss  mechanic 
to  leave  Brenetz  and  enter  into  partnership  with  him 
at  Munich  in  1805. 

The  result  was  perfectly  successful,  and  the  new 
firm  turned  out  some  of  the  largest  object-glasses 
which  had  until  then  been  made.  With  one  of  these 
instruments,  having  an  aperture  of  nine  and  nine-tenths 
inches,  Struve,  the  Russian  astronomer,  made  some  of 
his  greatest  discoveries.  Frauenhofer  was  succeeded 
by  Merz  &  Mahler,  who  carried  out  his  views,  and 
turned  out  the  famous  refractors  of  Pulkowa  Obser- 
vatory, in  Russia,  and  of  Harvard  University,  in  the 
United  States.  These  last  two  telescopes  contained 
object-glasses  of  fifteen  inches'  aperture. 

The  pernicious  impost  upon  Hint-glass  having  at 
length  been  removed  by  the  English  government,  an 
opportunity  was  afforded  to  our  native  opticians  to 
recover  the  supremacy  which  they  had  so  long  lost. 
It  is  to  Thomas  Cooke,  more  than  to  any  other  person, 
that  we  owe  the  recovery  of  this  manufacture.  Mr. 
Lockyer,  writing  in  1878,  says:  "The  two  largest  and 
most  perfectly  mounted  refractors  on  the  German  form 
at  present  in  existence  are  those  at  Gateshead  and 
Washington,  D.  C.  The  former  belongs  to  Mr.  New- 
all,  a  gentleman  who,  connected  with  those  who  were 
among  the  first  to  recognize  the  genius  of  our  great 
English  optician,  Cooke,  did  not  hesitate  to  risk  thou- 
sands of  pounds  in  one  great  experiment,  the  success 
of  which  will  have  a  most  important  bearing  upon  the 
astronomy  of  the  future."* 

*  J.  Norman  Lockyer,  F.R.S.,  "Stargazing,  Past  and  Present," 
p.  302. 

15 


338  Astronomers  and  Students. 

The  progress  which  Mr.  Cooke  made  in  his  enter- 
prise was  slow,  but  steady.  Shortly  after  he  began 
business  as  an  optician  he  became  dissatisfied  with  the 
method  of  hand  -  polishing,  and  made  arrangements 
to  polish  the  object-glasses  by  machinery  worked  by 
steam-power.  By  this  means  he  secured  perfect  accu- 
racy of  figure.  He  was  also  able  to  turn  out  a  large 
quantity  of  glasses,  so  as  to  furnish  astronomers  in  all 
parts  of  the  world  with  telescopes  of  admirable  defining 
power  at  a  comparatively  moderate  price.  In  all  his 
works  he  endeavored  to  introduce  simplicity.  He  left 
his  mark  on  nearly  every  astronomical  instrument. 
He  found  the  equatorial  comparatively  clumsy ;  he 
left  it  nearly  perfect.  His  beautiful  "  dividing-ma- 
chine," for  marking  divisions  on  the  circles,  four  feet 
in  diameter,  and  altogether  self-acting — which  divides 
to  five  minutes  and  reads  off  to  five  seconds — is  not 
the  least  of  his  triumphs. 

The  following  are  some  of  his  more  important  ach- 
romatic telescopes.  In  1850,  when  he  had  been  four- 
teen years  in  business,  he  furnished  his  earliest  patron, 
Professor  Phillips,  with  an  equatorial  telescope  of  six 
and  a  quarter  inches'  aperture.  His  second  (of  six 
and  an  eighth)  was  supplied  two  years  later,  to  James 
Wigglesworth,  of  Wakefield.  William  Gray,  solicitor, 
of  York,  one  of  his  earliest  friends,  bought  a  six-and- 
a-half -inch  telescope  in  1853.  In  the  following  year 
Professor  Pritchard,  of  Oxford,  was  supj)lied  with  a 
six-and-a-half-inch.  The  other  important  instruments 
were  as  follows:  in  1854,  Dr.  Fisher,  Liverpool,  six 
inches;  in  1855,  H.  L.  Patterson,  Gateshead,  seven  and 
a  quarter  inches;  in  1858,  J.  G.  Barclay,  Lay  ton,  Essex, 
seven  and  a  quarter  inches;  in  1857,  Isaac  Fletcher, 
Cockermouth,  nine  and  a  quarter  inches;  in  1858,  Sir 
W.  Keith  Murray,  Ochtertyre,  Crieff,  nine  inches;  in 
1859,  Captain  Jacob,  nine  inches;  in  1860,  James  Nas- 


Alvan  Claris  Refractors.  339 


myth,  Penshurst,  eight  inches;  in  1861,  another  tele- 
scope to  J.  G.  Barclay,  ten  inches;  in  1864,  the  Rev. 
W.  R.  Dawes,  Haddenham,  Berks,  eight  inches  ;  and 
in  1867,  Edward  Crossley,  Bermerside,  Halifax,  nine 
and  three-eighths  inches. 

In  1855  Mr.  Cooke  obtained  a  silver  medal  at  the 
first  Paris  Exhibition  for  a  six-inch  equatorial  tele- 
scope.* This  was  the  highest  prize  awarded.  A  few 
years  later  he  was  invited  to  Osborne  by  the  late  Prince 
Albert,  to  discuss  with  his  royal  highness  the  particu- 
lars of  an  equatorial  mounting  with  a  clock  movement, 
for  which  he  subsequently  received  the  order.  On  its 
completion,  he  superintended  the  erection  of  the  tele- 
scope, and  had  the  honor  of  directing  it  to  several  of 
the  celestial  objects  for  the  queen  and  the  Princess 
Alice,  and  answered  their  many  interesting  questions 
as  to  the  stars  and  planets  within  sight. 

Mr.  Cooke  was  put  to  his  mettle  towards  the  close 
of  his  life.  A  contest  had  long  prevailed  among  tele- 
scope-makers as  to  who  should  turn  out  the  largest 
refractor  instrument.  The  two  telescopes  of  fifteen 
inches'  aperture,  prepared  by  Merz  and  Mahler,  of  Mu- 
nich, were  the  largest  then  in  existence.  Their  size 
was  thought  quite  extraordinary.  But,  in  1846,  Mr. 
Alvan  Clark,  of  Cambridgeport,  Massachusetts,  spent 
his  leisure  hours  in  constructing  small  telescopes.f  He 
was  not  an  optician,  nor  a  mathematician,  but  a  por- 
trait painter.  He  possessed,  however,  enough  knowl- 
edge of  optics  and  of  mechanics  to  enable  him  to  make 
and  judge  a  telescope.  He  spent  some  ten  years  in 
grinding  lenses,  and  was  at  length  enabled  to  produce 
objectives  equal  in  quality  to  any  ever  made. 

*  This  excellent  instrument  is  now  in  the  possession  of  my  son-in- 
law,  Dr.  Hartree,  of  Leigh,  near  Tunbridge. 

t  An  interesting  account  of  Mr.  Alvan  Clark  is  given  in  Professor 
Newcomb's  "Popular  Astronomy,''  p.  137. 


340  Astronomers  and  Students. 

In  1853  the  Rev.  W.  R.  Dawes,  one  of  Mr.  Cooke's 
customers,  purchased  an  object-glass  from  Mr.  Clark. 
It  was  so  satisfactory  that  he  ordered  several  others, 
and  finally  an  entire  telescope.  The  American  artist 
then  began  to  be  appreciated  in  his  own  country.  In 
1860  he  received  an  order  for  a  refractor  of  eighteen 
inches'  aperture,  three  inches  greater  than  the  largest 
which  had  up  to  that  time  been  made.  This  telescope 
was  intended  for  the  Observatory  of  Mississippi,  but 
the  Civil  War  prevented  its  being  removed  to  the 
South,  and  the  telescope  was  sold  to  the  Astronomical 
Society  of  Chicago,  and  mounted  in  the  observatory 
of  that  city. 

And  now  comes  in  the  rivalry  of  Mr.  Cooke,  of  York, 
or,  rather,  of  his  patron,  Mr.  Kewall,  of  Gateshead. 
At  the  Great  Exhibition  of  London,  in  1862,  two  large, 
circular  blocks  of  glass,  about  two  inches  thick  and 
twenty-six  inches  in  diameter,  were  shown  by  the  man- 
ufacturers, Messrs.  Chance,  of  Birmingham.  These 
disks  were  found  to  be  of  perfect  quality,  and  suitable 
for  object-glasses  of  the  best  kind.  At  the  close  of 
the  exhibition  they  were  purchased  by  Mr.  Xewall, 
and  transferred  to  the  workshops  of  Messrs.  Cooke  & 
Sons,  at  York.  To  grind  and  polish  and  mount  these 
disks  was  found  a  work  of  great  labor  and  difficulty. 
Mr.  Lockyer  says,  "  Such  an  achievement  marks  an 
epoch  in  telescopic  astronomy,  and  the  skill  of  Mr. 
Cooke  and  the  munificence  of  Mr.  Newall  will  long  be 
remembered." 

When  finished,  the  object-glass  had  an  aperture  of 
nearly  twenty-five  inches,  and  was  of  much  greater 
power  than  the  eighteen  -  inch  Chicago  instrument. 
The  length  of  the  tube  was  about  thirty-two  feet. 
The  cast-iron  pillar  supporting  the  whole  was  nineteen 
feet  in  height  from  the  ground,  and  the  weight  of  the 
whole  instrument  was  about  six  tons.     In  preparing 


Death  of  Thomas  Cooke.  341 

this  telescope,  nearly  everything,  from  its  extraordi- 
nary size,  had  to  be  specially  arranged.*  The  great 
anxiety  involved  in  these  arrangements,  and  the 
constant  study  and  application,  told  heavily  upon  Mr. 
Cooke,  and  though  the  instrument  wanted  only  a  few 
touches  to  make  it  complete,  his  health  broke  down, 
and  he  died  on  the  19th  of  October,  1868,  at  the  com- 
paratively early  age  of  sixty-two. 

Mr.  Cooke's  death  was  felt,  in  a  measure,  to  be  a 
national  loss.  His  science  and  skill  had  restored  to 
England  the  prominent  position  she  had  held  in  the 
time  of  Dollond;  and,  had  he  lived,  even  more  might 
have  been  expected  from  him.  We  believe  that  the 
Gold  Medal  and  Fellowship  of  the  Royal  Society  were 
waiting  for  him;  but,  as  one  of  his  friends  said  to  his 
widow,  "neither  worth  nor  talent  avails  when  the  great 
ordeal  is  presented  to  us."  In  a  letter  from  Professor 
Pritchard,  he  said:  "Your  husband  has  left  his  mark 
upon  his  age.     No  optician  of  modern  times  has  gained 

*  A  photographic  representation  of  this  remarkable  telescope  is  giv- 
en as  the  frontispiece  to  Mr.  Loekyer's  "  Stargazing,  Past  and  Pres- 
ent," and  a  full  description  of  the  instrument  is  given  in  the  text  of  the 
same  work.  This  refractor  telescope  did  not  long  remain  the  largest. 
Mr.  Alvan  Clark  was  commissioned  to  erect  a  larger  equatorial  for 
Washington  Observatory,  the  object-glass  (the  rough  disks  of  which 
were  also  furnished  by  Messrs.  Chance,  of  Birmingham)  exceeding  in 
aperture  that  of  Mr.  Cooke's  by  only  one  inch.  This  was  finished  and 
mounted  in  November,  1873.  Another  instrument,  of  similar  size  and 
power,  was  manufactured  by  Mr.  Clark  for  the  University  of  Virginia. 
But  these  instruments  did  not  long  maintain  their  supremacy.  In 
1881  Mr.  Howard  Grubb,  of  Dublin,  manufactured  a  still  larger  in- 
strument for  the  Austrian  government,  the  refractor  being  of  twenty- 
seven  inches'  aperture.  But  Mr.  Alvan  Clark  was  not  to  be  beaten. 
In  1882  he  supplied  the  Russian  government  with  the  largest  refractor 
telescope  in  existence,  the  object-glass  being  of  thirty  inches'  diameter. 
But  even  this  is  to  be  surpassed  by  the  lens  which  Mr.  Clark  has  in 
hand  for  the  Lick  Observatory  (California),  which  is  to  have  a  clear 
aperture  of  three  feet  in  diameter. 


342  Astronomers  and  Students. 

a  higher  reputation;  and  I  for  one  do  not  hesitate  to 
call  his  loss  national;  for  he  cannot  be  replaced  at 
present  by  any  one  else  in  his  own  peculiar  line.  I 
shall  carry  the  recollection  of  the  affectionate  esteem 
in  which  I  held  Thomas  Cooke  with  me  to  my  grave. 
Alas!  that  he  should  be  cut  off  just  at  the  moment 
when  he  was  about  to  reap  the  rewards  due  to  his  un- 
rivalled excellence.  I  have  said  that  F.R.S.  and  medals 
were  to  be  his.  But  he  is,  we  fondly  trust,  in  a  better 
and  higher  state  than  that  of  earthly  distinction.  Rest 
assured,  your  husband's  name  must  ever  be  associated 
with  the  really  great  men  of  his  day.  Those  who  knew 
him  will  ever  cherish  his  memory." 

Mr.  Cooke  left  behind  him  the  great  works  which  he 
founded  in  Buckingham  Street,  York.  They  still  give 
employment  to  a  large  number  of  skilled  and  intelli- 
gent artisans.  There  I  found  many  important  works  in 
progress — the  manufacture  of  theodolites,  of  prismatic 
compasses  (for  surveying),  of  Bolton's  range-finder,  and 
of  telescopes  above  all.  In  the  factory  yard  was  the 
commencement  of  the  Observatory  for  Greenwich,  to 
contain  the  late  Mr.  Lassell's  splendid  two-feet  New- 
tonian reflecting  telescope,  which  has  been  presented 
to  the  nation.  Mr.  Cooke's  spirit  still  haunts  the  works, 
which  are  carried  on  with  the  skill,  the  vigor,  and  the 
perseverance  transmitted  by  him  to  his  sons. 

While  at  York,  I  was  informed  by  Mr.Wigglesworth, 
the  partner  of  Messrs.  Cooke,  of  an  energetic  young 
astronomer  at  Bainbridge,  in  the  mountain-district  of 
Yorkshire,  who  had  not  only  been  able  to  make  a  tele- 
scope  of  his  own,  but  was  an  excellent  photographer. 
He  was  not  yet  thirty  years  of  age,  but  had  encoun- 
tered and  conquered  many  difficulties.  This  is  a  sort 
of  character  which  is  more  often  to  be  met  with  in  re- 
mote country  places  than  in  thickly  peopled  cities.     In 


Samuel  Lancaster.  343 

the  country  a  man  is  more  of  an  individual;  in  a  city 
he  is  only  one  of  a  multitude.  The  country  boy  has 
to  rely  upon  himself,  and  has  to  work  in  comparative 
solitude,  while  the  city  boy  is  distracted  by  excite- 
ments. Life  in  the  country  is  full  of  practical  teach- 
ings ;  whereas  life  in  the  city  may  be  degraded  by 
frivolities  and  pleasures,  which  are  too  often  the  foes 
of  work.  Hence  we  have  usually  to  go  to  out-of-the- 
way  corners  of  the  country  for  our  hardest  brain- work- 
ers. Contact  with  the  earth  is  a  great  restorer  of 
power  ;  and  it  is  to  the  country  folks  that  we  must 
ever  look  for  the  recuperative  power  of  the  nation  as 
regards  health,  vigor,  and  manliness. 

Bainbridge  is  a  remote  country  village,  situated 
among  the  high  lands  or  fells  on  the  northwestern 
border  of  Yorkshire.  The  mountains  there  send  out 
great  projecting  buttresses  into  the  dales;  and  the 
waters  rush  down  from  the  hills,  and  form  waterfalls 
or  forces,  which  Turner  has  done  so  much  to  illustrate. 
The  river  Bain  runs  into  the  Yore  at  Bainbridge,  which 
is  supposed  to  be  the  site  of  an  old  Roman  station. 
Over  the  door  of  the  grammar-school  is  a  mermaid, 
said  to  have  been  found  in  a  camp  on  the  top  of  Ad- 
dleborough,  a  remarkable  limestone  hill  which  rises  to 
the  southeast  of  Bainbridge.  It  is  in  this  grammar- 
school  that  we  find  the  subject  of  this  little  autobiog- 
raphy. He  must  be  allowed  to  tell  the  story  of  his 
life — which  he  describes  as  "Work:  Good,  Bad,  and 
Indifferent" — in  his  own  words. 

"I  was  born  on  November  20th,  1853.  In  my  child- 
hood I  suffered  from  ill-health.  My  parents  let  me 
play  about  in  the  open  air,  and  did  not  put  me  to 
school  until  I  had  turned  my  sixth  year.  One  day, 
playing  in  the  shoemaker's  shop,  William  Farrel  asked 
me  if  I  knew  my  letters.  I  answered  'No.'  He  then 
took  down  a  primer  from  a  shelf,  and  began  to  teach 


344  Astronomers  and  Students. 

me  the  alphabet,  at  the  same  time  amusing  me  by  liken- 
ing the  letters  to  familiar  objects  in  his  shop.  I  soon 
learned  to  read,  and  in  about  six  weeks  I  surprised  my 
father  by  reading  from  an  easy  book  which  the  shoe- 
maker had  given  me. 

"  My  father  then  took  me  into  the  school,  of  which 
he  was  master,  and  my  education  may  be  said  fairly  to 
have  begun.  My  progress,  however,  was  very  slow — 
partly  owing  to  ill-health,  but  more,  I  must  acknowl- 
edge, to  carelessness  and  inattention.  In  fact,  during 
the  first  four  years  I  was  at  school,  I  learned  very  lit- 
tle of  anything,  with  the  exception  of  reciting  verses, 
which  I  seemed  to  learn  without  any  mental  effort. 
My  memory  became  very  retentive.  I  found  that  by 
attentively  reading  half  a  page  of  print,  or  more,  from 
any  of  the  school-books,  I  could  repeat  the  whole  of  it 
without  missing  a  word.  I  can  scarcely  explain  how  I 
did  it;  but  I  think  it  was  by  paying  strict  attention  to 
the  words  as  words,  and  forming  a  mental  picture  of  the 
paragraphs  as  they  were  grouped  in  the  book.  Cer- 
tain, I  am,  that  their  sense  never  made  much  impression 
on  me,  for,  when  questioned  by  the  teacher,  I  was  al- 
ways sent  to  the  bottom  of  the  class,  though  apparently 
I  had  learned  my  exercise  to  perfection. 

"  When  I  was  twelve  years  old,  I  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  a  very  ingenious  boy,  who  came  to  our  school. 
Samuel  Bridge  was  a  born  mechanic.  Though  only  a 
year  older  than  myself,  such  was  his  ability  in  the  use 
of  tools  that  he  could  construct  a  model  of  any  ma- 
chine that  he  saw.  He  awakened  in  me  a  love  of  me- 
chanical construction,  and  together  we  made  models 
of  colliery  winding  -  frames,  iron -rolling  mills,  trip- 
hammers, and  water-wheels.  Some  of  them  were  not 
mere  toys,  but  constructed  to  scale,  and  were  really 
good  working  models.  This  love  of  mechanical  con- 
struction has  never  left  me,  and  I  shall  always  remem- 


Study  of  Chemistry.  345 

ber  with  affection  Samuel  Bridge,  who  first  taught  me 
to  use  the  hammer  and  file.  The  last  I  heard  of  him 
was  in  1875,  when  he  passed  his  examination  as  a 
schoolmaster,  in  honors,  and  was  at  the  head  of  his 
list. 

"During  the  next  two  years,  when  between  twelve 
and  fourteen,  I  made  comparatively  slow  progress  at 
school.  I  remember  having  to  write  out  the  fourth 
commandment  from  memory.  The  teacher  counted 
twenty-three  mistakes  in  ten  lines  of  my  writing.  It 
will  be  seen  from  this,  that,  as  regards  learning,  I  con- 
tinued heedless  and  backward.  About  this  time  my 
father,  who  was  a  good  violinist,  took  me  under  his 
tuition.  He  made  me  practice  on  the  violin  about  an 
hour  and  a  half  a  day.  I  continued  this  for  a  long 
time.  But  the  result  was  failure.  I  hated  the  violin, 
and  would  never  play  unless  compelled  to  do  so.  I 
suppose  the  secret  was  that  I  had  no  '  ear.' 

"It  was  different  with  subjects  more  to  my  mind. 
Looking  over  my  father's  books  one  day,  I  came  upon 
'  Gregory's  Handbook  of  Inorganic  Chemistry,'  and 
began  reading  it.  I  was  fascinated  with  the  book,  and 
studied  it  morning,  noon,  and  night — in  fact,  every  time 
when  I  could  snatch  a  few  minutes.  I  really  believe 
that  at  one  time  I  could  have  repeated  the  whole  of  the 
book  from  memory.  Now  I  found  the  value  of  arith- 
metic, and  set  to  work  in  earnest  on  proportion,  vulgar 
and  decimal  fractions,  and,  in  fact,  everything  in  school 
work  that  I  could  turn  to  account  in  the  science  of 
chemistry.  The  result  of  this  sudden  application  was 
that  I  was  seized  with  an  illness.  For  some  months  I 
had  incessant  headache;  my  hair  became  dried  up, 
then  turned  gray,  and  finally  came  off.  Weighing 
myself  shortly  after  my  recovery,  at  the  age  of  fifteen, 
I  found  that  I  just  balanced  fifty-six  pounds.  I  took 
up   mensuration,  then    astronomy,  working   at   them 

15* 


346  Astronomers  and  Students. 

slowly,  but  giving  the  bulk  of  my  spare  time  to  chem- 
istry. 

"In  the  year  1869,  when  I  was  sixteen  years  old,  I 
came  across  Cuthbert  Bede's  book,  entitled  'Photo- 
graphic Pleasures.'  It  is  an  amusing  book,  giving  an 
account  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  photography,  and 
at  the  same  time  having  a  good-natured  laugh  at  it. 
I  read  the  book  carefully,  and  took  up  photography  as 
an  amusement,  using  some  apparatus  which  belonged 
to  my  father,  who  had  at  one  time  dabbled  in  the  art. 
I  was  soon  able  to  take  fair  photographs.  I  then  de- 
cided to  try  photography  as  a  business.  I  was  appren- 
ticed to  a  photographer,  and  spent  four  years  with  him 
— one  year  at  Northallerton,  and  three  at  Darlington. 
When  my  employer  removed  to  Darlington,  I  joined 
the  School  of  Art  there. 

"  Having  read  an  account  of  the  experiments  of  M. 
E.  Becquerel,  a  French  savant,  on  photographing  in 
the  colors  of  nature,  my  curiosity  was  awakened.  I 
carefully  repeated  his  experiments,  and  convinced  my- 
self that  he  was  correct.  I  continued  my  experiments 
in  heliochromy  for  a  period  of  about  two  years,  during 
which  time  I  made  many  photographs  in  colors,  and 
discovered  a  method  of  developing  the  colored  image, 
which  enabled  me  to  shorten  the  exposure  to  one  for- 
tieth of  the  previously  required  time.  During  these 
experiments  I  came  upon  some  curious  results,  which, 
I  think,  might  puzzle  our  scientific  men  to  account  for. 
For  instance,  I  proved  the  existence  of  black  light,  or 
rays  of  such  a  nature  as  to  turn  the  rose-colored  sur- 
face of  the  sensitive  plate  black — that  is,  rays  reflected 
from  the  black  paint  of  drapery,  produced  black  in  the 
picture,  and  not  the  effect  of  darkness.  I  was,  like 
Becquerel,  unable  to  fix  the  colored  image  without  de- 
stroying the  colors;  though  the  plates  would  keep  a 
long  while  in  the  dark,  and  could  be  examined  in  a 


Education  in  Art.  347 

subdued,  though  not  in  a  strong  light.  The  colored 
image  was  faint,  but  the  colors  came  out  with  great 
truth  and  delicacy. 

"  I  began  to  attend  the  School  of  Art,  at  Darlington, 
on  the  6th  of  March,  1872.  I  found,  on  attempting  to 
draw,  that  I  had  naturally  a  correct  eye  and  hand,  and 
I  made  such  progress  that,  when  the  students'  draw- 
ings were  examined,  previously  to  sending  them  up  to 
South  Kensington,  all  my  work  was  approved.  I  was 
then  set  to  draw  from  the  cast  in  chalk,  although  I 
had  only  been  at  the  school  for  a  month.  I  tried  for 
all  the  four  subjects  at  Hhe  May  examination,  and  was 
fortunate  enough  to  pass  three  of  them,  and  obtained 
as  a  prize  Packett's  i  Sciography.'  I  worked  hard 
during  the  next  year,  and  sent  up  seventeen  works; 
for  one  of  these,  the  '  Venus  de  Milo,'  I  gained  a  stu- 
dentship. 

"I  then  commenced  the  study  of  human  anatomy, 
and  began  water-color  painting,  reading  all  the  works 
upon  art  on  which  I  could  lay  my  hand.  At  the  May 
examination  of  18*73  I  completed  my  second-grade  cer- 
tificate, and  at  the  end  of  the  year  of  my  studentship 
I  accepted  the  office  of  teacher  in  the  School  of  Art. 
This  art-training  created  in  me  a  sort  of  disgust  for 
photography,  as  I  saw  that  the  science  of  photography 
had  really  very  little  genuine  art  in  it,  and  was  more 
allied  to  a  mechanical  pursuit  than  to  an  artistic  one. 
Now,  when  I  look  back  on  my  past  ideas,  I  clearly  see 
that  a  great  deal  of  this  disgust  was  due  to  my  igno- 
rance and  self-conceit. 

"In  1874  I  commenced  painting  in  tempora,  and 
then  in  oil,  copying  the  pictures  lent  to  the  school 
from  the  South  Kensington  Art  Library.  I  worked, 
also,  from  still  life,  and  began  sketching  from  nature 
in  oil  and  water  colors,  sometimes  selling  my  work  to 
help  me  to  buy  materials  for  art- work  and  scientific 


348  Astronomers  and  Students. 

experiments.  I  was,  however,  able  to  do  very  little  in 
the  following  year,  as  I  was  at  home,  suffering  from 
sciatica.  For  nine  months  I  could  not  stand  erect, 
but  had  to  hobble  about  with  a  stick.  This  illness 
caused  me  to  give  up  my  teachership. 

"Early  in  1876  I  returned  to  Darlington.  I  went 
on  with  my  art  studies  and  the  science  of  chemistry, 
though  I  went  no  further  in  heliochromy.  I  pushed 
forward  with  anatomy.  I  sent  about  fifteen  works  to 
South  Kensington,  and  gained,  as  my  third-grade  prize 
in  list  A,  the  '  Dictionary  of  Terms  used  in  Art,'  by 
Thomas  Fairholt,  which  I  found  a  very  useful  work. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  year  my  father,  whose  health 
was  declining,  sent  for  me  home,  to  assist  him  in  the 
school.  I  now  commenced  the  study  of  algebra  and 
Euclid  in  good  earnest,  but  found  it  tough  work.  My 
father,  though  a  fair  mathematician,  was  unable  to 
give  me  any  instruction,  for  he  had  been  seized  with 
paralysis,  from  which  he  never  recovered.  Before  he 
died  he  recommended  me  to  try  for  a  schoolmaster's 
certificate,  and  I  promised  him  that  I  would.  I  ob- 
tained a  situation  as  master  of  a  small  village  school, 
not  under  government  inspection;  and  I  studied  dur- 
ing the  year,  and  obtained  a  second-class  certificate 
at  the  Durham  Diocesan  College  at  Christmas,  1877. 
Early  in  the  following  year  the  school  was  placed  un- 
der government  inspection,  and  became  a  little  more 
remunerative. 

"I  now  went  on  with  chemical  analysis,  making  my 
own  apparatus.  Requiring  an  intense  heat  on  a  small 
scale,  I  invented  a  furnace  that  burned  petroleum  oil. 
It  was  blown  by  compressed  air.  After  many  failures, 
I  eventually  succeeded  in  bringing  it  to  such  perfec- 
tion that  in  seven  and  a  half  minutes  it  would  bring 
four  ounces  of  steel  into  a  perfectly  liquefied  state.  I 
next  commenced  the  study  of  electricity  and  magnet- 


Algebra,  Euclid,  and  Optics.  349 

ism,  and  then  acoustics,  light,  and  heat.  I  construct- 
ed all  my  apparatus  myself,  and  acquired  the  art  of 
glass-blowing,  in  order  to  make  my  own  chemical  ap- 
paratus, and  thus  save  expense. 

"  I  then  went  on  with  algebra  and  Euclid,  and  took 
up  plane  trigonometry  ;  but  I  devoted  most  of  my 
time  to  electricity  and  magnetism.  I  constructed  va- 
rious scientific  apparatus — a  siren,  telephones,  micro- 
phones, an  Edison's  megaphone,  as  well  as  an  elec- 
trometer, and  a  machine  for  covering  electric  wire 
with  cotton  or  silk.  A  friend  having  lent  me  a  work 
on  artificial  memory,  I  began  to  study  it;  but  the  work 
led  me  into  nothing  but  confusion,  and  I  soon  found 
that,  if  I  did  not  give  it  up,  I  should  be  left  with  no 
memory  at  all.  I  still  went  on  sketching  from  nature, 
not  so  much  as  a  study,  but  as  a  means  of  recruiting 
my  health,  which  was  far  from  being  good.  At  the 
beginning  of  1881  I  obtained  my  present  situation  as 
assistant  master  at  the  Yorebridge  Grammar  School, 
of  which  the  Rev.  W.  Balderston,  M.A.,  is  principal. 

"  Soon  after  I  became  settled  here  I  spent  some  of 
my  leisure  time  in  reading  Emerson's  '  Optics,'  a  work 
I  bought  at  an  old  bookstall.  I  was  not  very  success- 
ful with  it,  owing  to  my  deficient  mathematical  knowl- 
edge. On  the  May  Science  Examinations  of  1881 
taking  place,  at  Kewcastle-on-Tyne,  I  applied  for  per- 
mission to  sit,  and  obtained  four  tickets  for  the  follow- 
ing subjects :  mathematics,  electricity  and  magnetism, 
acoustics,  light  and  heat,  and  physiography.  During 
the  preceding  month  I  had  read  up  the  first  three  sub- 
jects; but,  being  pressed  for  time,  I  gave  up  the  idea 
of  taking  physiography.  However,  on  the  last  night 
of  the  examinations  I  had  some  conversation  with  one 
of  the  students  as  to  the  subjects  required  for  physi- 
ography. He  said,  'You  want  a  little  knowledge  of 
everything  in  a  scientific  way.  and  nothing  much  of 


350  Astronomers  and  Students. 

anything.'  I  determined  to  try,  for  '  nothing  much  of 
anything'  suited  me  exactly.  I  rose  early  next  morn- 
ing, and  as  soon  as  the  shops  were  open  I  went  and 
bought  a  book  on  the  subject, '  Outlines  of  Physiogra- 
phy,' by  W.  Lawson,  F.R.G.S.  I  read  it  all  day,  and 
at  night  sat  for  the  examination.  The  results  of  my 
examinations  were  failure  in  mathematics,  but  second- 
class  advanced-grade  certificates  in  all  the  others.  I 
do  not  attach  any  credit  to  passing  in  physiography, 
but  merely  relate  the  circumstance  as  curiously  show- 
ing what  can  be  done  by  a  good  '  cram.' 

"The  failure  in  mathematics  caused  me  to  take  the 
subject  'by  the  horns,'  to  see  what  I  could  do  with  it. 
I  began  by  going  over  quadratic  equations,  and  I  grad- 
ually solved  the  whole  of  those  given  in  Todhunter's 
larger  'Algebra.'  Then  I  re-read  the  progressions, 
permutations,  combinations ;  the  binomial  theorem, 
with  indices  and  surds  ;  the  logarithmic  theorem  and 
series,  converging  and  diverging.  I  got  Todhunter's 
larger  'Plane  Trigonometry,'  and  read  it,  with  the 
theorems  contained  in  it;  then  his  'Spherical  Trigo- 
nometry;' his  'Analytical  Geometry,  of  Two  Dimen- 
sions,' and  '  Conies.'  I  next  obtained  De  Morgan's 
'  Differential  and  Integral  Calculus,'  then  Woolhouse's, 
and,  lastly,  Todhunter's.  I  found  this  department  of 
mathematics  difficult  and  perplexing  to  the  last  degree; 
but  I  mastered  it  sufficiently  to  turn  it  to  some  ac- 
count. This  last  mathematical  course  represents  eigh- 
teen months  of  hard  work,  and  I  often  sat  up  the  whole 
night  through.  One  result  of  the  application  was  a 
permanent  injury  to  my  sight. 

"Wanting  some  object  on  which  to  apply  my  new- 
ly acquired  mathematical  knowledge,  I  determined  to 
construct  an  astronomical  telescope.  I  got  Airy's  '  Ge- 
ometrical Optics,'  and  read  it  through.  Then  I  searched 
through  all  my  English  Mechanic  (a  scientific  paper 


Construction  of  a  Telescojje-.  351 

that  I  take),  and  prepared  for  my  work  by  reading  all 
the  literature  on  the  subject  that  I  could  obtain.  I 
bought  two  disks  of  glass,  of  six  and  a  half  inches'  di- 
ameter, and  began  to  grind  them  to  a  spherical  curve 
twelve  feet  radius.  I  got  them  hollowed  out,  but  failed 
in  fining  them  through  lack  of  skill.  This  occurred  six 
times  in  succession ;  but  at  the  seventh  time  the  polish 
came  up  beautifully,  with  scarcely  a  scratch  upon  tne 
surface.  Stopping  my  work  one  night,  and  it  being 
starlight,  I  thought  I  would  try  the  mirror  on  a  star. 
I  had  a  wooden  frame  ready  for  the  purpose,  which 
the  carpenter  had  made  for  me.  Judge  of  my  sur- 
prise and  delight  when  I  found  that  the  star-disk  en- 
larged nearly  in  the  same  manner  from  each  side  of 
the  focal  point,  thus  making  it  extremely  probable  that 
I  had  accidentally  hit  on  a  new  approach  to  the  pa- 
rabola in  the  curve  of  my  mirror.  And  such  proved  to 
be  the  case.  I  have  the  mirror  still,  and  its  perform- 
ance is  very  good  indeed. 

"I  went  no  further  with  this  mirror,  for  fear  of 
spoiling  it.  It  is  very  slightly  gray  in  the  centre,  but 
not  sufficiently  so  as  to  materially  injure  its  perform- 
ance. I  mounted  it  in  a  wooden  tube,  placed  it  on  a 
wooden  stand,  and  used  it  for  a  time  thus  mounted; 
but,  getting  disgusted  with  the  tremor  and  inconve- 
nience I  had  to  put  up  with,  I  resolved  to  construct  for 
it  an  iron  equatorial  stand.  I  made  my  patterns,  got 
them  cast,  turned  and  fitted  them  myself,  grinding  all 
the  working  parts  together  with  emery  and  oil,  and 
fitted  a  tangent-screw  motion  to  drive  the  instrument 
in  right  ascension.  Now  I  found  the  instrument  a 
pleasure  to  use,  and  I  determined  to  add  to  it  divided 
circles,  and  to  accurately  adjust  it  to  the  meridian. 
I  made  my  circles  of  well-seasoned  mahogany,  with 
slips  of  papeiv  on  their  edges,  dividing  them  with  my 
drawing  instruments,  and  varnishing  them  to  keep  out 


352  Astronomers  and  Students. 

the  wet.  I  shall  never  forget  that  sunny  afternoon 
upon  which  I  computed  the  hour-angle  for  Jupiter, 
and  set  the  instrument  so  that,  by  calculation,  Jupiter 
should  pass  through  the  field  of  the  instrument  at  one 
hour  twenty-five  minutes  and  fifteen  seconds.  With 
my  watch  in  my  hand,  and  my  eye  to  the  eye-piece,  I 
waited  for  the  orb.  When  his  glorious  face  appeared, 
almost  in  a  direct  line  for  the  centre  of  the  field,  I 
could  not  contain  my  joy,  but  shouted  out  as  loudly 
as  I  could,  greatly  to  the  astonishment  of  old  George 
Johnson,  the  miller,  who  happened  to  be  in  the  field 
where  I  had  planted  my  stand  ! 

"Now,  though  I  had  obtained  what  I  wanted — a 
fairly  good  instrument — still  I  was  not  quite  satisfied, 
as  I  had  produced  it  by  a  fortunate  chance,  and  not 
by  skill  alone.  I  therefore  set  to  work  again  on  the 
other  disk  of  glass,  to  try  if  I  could  finish  it  in  such  a 
way  as  to  excel  the  first  one.  After  nearly  a  year's 
work,  I  found  that  I  could  only  succeed  in  equalling 
it.  But  then,  during  this  time,  I  had  removed  the 
working  of  mirrors  from  mere  chance  to  a  fair  amount 
of  certainty.  By  bringing  my  mathematical  knowl- 
edge to  bear  on  the  subject,  I  had  devised  a  method 
of  testing  and  measuring  my  work  which,  I  am  happy 
to  say,  has  been  fairly  successful,  and  has  enabled  me 
to  produce  the  spherical,  elliptic,  parabolic,  or  hyper- 
bolic curve  in  my  mirrors  with  almost  unvarying  suc- 
cess. The  study  of  the  practical  working  of  specula 
and  lenses  has  also  absorbed  a  good  deal  of  my  spare 
time  during  the  last  two  years,  and  the  work  involved 
has  been  scarcely  less  difficult.  Altogether,  I  consider 
this  last  year  (1882-83)  to  mark  the  busiest  period  of 
my  life. 

"  It  will  be  observed  that  I  have  only  given  an  ac- 
count of  those  branches  of  study  in  which  I  have  put 
to  practical  test  the  deductions  from  theoretical  rea- 


Achromatic  Object-glass.  353 

soning.  I  am  at  present  engaged  on  the  theory  of  the 
achromatic  object-glass,  with  regard  to  spherical  chro- 
matism,  a  subject  upon  which,  I  believe,  nearly  all  our 
text-books  are  silent,  but  one,  nevertheless,  of  vital 
importance  to  the  optician.  I  can  only  proceed  very 
slowly  with  it,  on  account  of  having  to  grind  and  fig- 
ure lenses  for  every  step  of  the  theory  to  keep  myself 
in  the  right  track,  as  mere  theorizing  is  apt  to  lead 
one  very  much  astray,  unless  it  be  checked  by  constant 
experiment.  For  this  particular  subject,  lenses  mtist 
be  ground  firstly  to  spherical,  and  then  to  curves  of 
conic  sections,  so  as  to  eliminate  spherical  aberration 
from  each  lens;  so  that  it  will  be  observed  that  this 
subject  is  not  without  its  difficulties. 

"About  a  month  ago  (September,  1883)  I  deter- 
mined to  put  to  the  test  the  statement  of  some  of  our 
theorists,  that  the  surface  of  a  rotating  fluid  is  either 
a  parabola  or  a  hyperbola.  I  found  by  experiment  that 
it  is  neither,  but  an  approximation  to  the  tractrix  (a 
modification  of  the  catenary),  if  anything  definite;  as, 
indeed,  one,  on  thinking  over  the  matter,  might  feel 
certain  it  would  be,  the  tractrix  being  the  curve  of 
least  friction. 

"  In  astronomy  I  have  really  done  very  little  beyond 
mere  algebraical  working  of  the  fundamental  theo- 
rems and  a  little  casual  observation  of  the  telescope. 
So  far,  I  must  own,  I  have  taken  more  pleasure  in  the 
theory  and  construction  of  the  telescope  than  in  its 
use." 

Such  is  Samuel  Lancaster's  history  of  the  growth 
and  development  of  his  mind.  I  do  not  think  there  is 
anything  more  interesting  in  the  "Pursuit  of  Knowl- 
edge under  Difficulties."  His  life  has  been  a  gallant 
endeavor  to  win  further  knowledge,  though  too  much 
at  the  expense  of  a  constitution  originally  delicate. 
He  pursues  science  with  patience  and  determination, 


354  Astronomers  and  Students. 

and  wooes  truth  with  the  ardor  of  a  lover.  Eulogy  of 
his  character  would  here  be  unnecessary,  but  if  he 
takes  due  care  of  his  health,  we  shall  hear  more  of 
him.* 

*  Since  the  above  passage  was  written  and  in  type,  I  have  seen  (in 
September,  1884)  the  reflecting  telescope  referred  to  at  pp.  351,  352. 
It  was  mounted  on  its  cast-iron  equatorial  stand,  and  at  work  in  the 
field  adjoining  the  village  green  at  Bainbridge,  Yorkshire.  The  mir- 
ror of  the  telescope  is  eight  inches  in  diameter,  its  focal  length  five 
fee%  and  the  tube  in  which  it  is  mounted  about  six  feet  long.  The 
instrument  seemed  to  me  to  have  an  excellent  defining  power. 

But  Mr.  Lancaster,  like  every  eager  astronomer,  is  anxious  for  fur- 
ther improvements.  He  considers  the  achromatic  telescope  the  king 
of  instruments,  and  is  now  engaged  in  testing  convex  optical  surfaces, 
with  a  view  to  achieving  a  telescope  of  that  description.  The  chief 
difficulty  is  the  heavy  charge  for  the  circular  blocks  of  flint-glass  requi- 
site for  the  work  which  he  meditates.  "That,"  he  says,  "  is  the  great 
difficulty  with  amateurs  of  my  class."  He  has,  however,  already  con- 
trived and  constructed  a  machine  for  grinding  and  polishing  the  lenses 
in  an  accurate  convex  form,  and  it  works  quite  satisfactorily. 

Mr.  Lancaster  makes  his  own  tools.  From  the  raw  material,  whether 
of  glass  or  steel,  he  produces  the  work  required.  As  to  tools,  all  that 
he  requires  is  a  bar  of  steel  and  fire  ;  his  fertile  brain  and  busy  hands 
do  the  rest.  I  looked  into  the  little  workshop  behind  his  sitting-room, 
and  found  it  full  of  ingenious  adaptations.  The  turning-lathe  occu- 
pies a  considerable  part  of  it ;  but,  when  he  requires  more  space,  the 
village  smith  with  his  stithy,  and  the  miller  with  his  water-power,  are 
always  ready  to  help  him.  His  tools,  though  not  showy,  are  effect- 
ive. His  best  lenses  are  made  by  himself;  those  which  he  buys  are 
not  to  be  depended  upon.  The  best  flint-glass  is  obtained  from  Paris 
in  blocks,  which  he  divides,  grinds,  and  polishes  to  perfect  form. 

I  was  attracted  by  a  newly  made  machine,  placed  on  a  table  in  the 
sitting-room,  and,  on  inquiry,  found  that  its  object  was  to  grind  and 
polish  lenses.  Mr.  Lancaster  explained  that  the  difficulty  to  be  over- 
come in  a  good  machine  is  to  make  the  emery  cut  the  surface  equally 
from  centre  to  edge  of  the  lens,  so  that  the  lens  will  neither  lengthen 
nor  shorten  the  curve  during  its  production.  To  quote  his  words, 
"  This  really  involves  the  problem  of  the  '  three  bodies,'  or  disturbing 
forces  so  celebrated  in  dynamical  mathematics,  and  it  is  further  com- 
plicated by  another  quantity,  the  'coefficient  of  attrition,'  or  work 
done  by  the  grinding  material,  as  well  as  the  mischief  done  by  capil- 


John  Jones.  355 


More  astronomers  in  humble  life!  There  seems  to 
be  no  end  of  them.  There  must  be  a  great  fascination 
in  looking  up  to  the  heavens,  and  seeing  those  won- 
drous worlds  careering  in  the  far-off  infinite.  Let  me 
look  back  to  the  names  I  have  introduced  in  this  chap- 
ter of  autobiography.  First,  there  was  my  worthy 
porter  friend  at  Coupar  Angus  station,  enjoying  him- 

lary  attraction  and  nodal  points  of  superimposed  curves  in  the  path  of 
the  tool.  These  complications  tend  to  cause  rings  or  waves  of  un- 
equal wear  in  the  surface  of  the  glass,  and  ruin  the  defining  power  of 
the  lens,  which  depends  upon  the  uniformity  of  its  curve.  As  the 
outcome  of  much  practical  experiment,  combined  with  mathematical 
research,  I  settled  upon  the  ratio  of  speed  between  the  sheave  of  the 
lens-tool  guide  and  the  turn-table,  between  whose  limits  the  practical 
equalization  of  wear  (or  cut  of  the  emery)  might  with  the  greater  fa- 
cility be  adjusted,  by  means  of  varying  the  stroke  and  eccentricity  of 
the  tool.  As  the  result  of  these  considerations  in  the  construction  of 
the  machine,  the  surface  of  the  glass  '  comes  up '  regularly  all  over  the 
lens,  and  the  polishing  only  takes  a  few  minutes'  work,  thus  keeping 
the  truth  of  surface  gained  by  using  a  rigid  tool." 

The  machine  in  question  consists  of  a  revolving  sheave  or  ring, 
with  a  sliding  strip  across  its  diameter,  the  said  strip  having  a  slot 
and  clamping-screw  at  one  end  and  a  hole  towards  the  other,  through 
which  passes  the  axis  of  the  tool  used  in  forming  the  lens,  the  slot  in 
the  strip  allowing  the  tool  to  give  any  stroke  from  zero  to  one  and  a 
quarter  inch.  The  lens  is  carried  on  a  revolving  turn-table,  with  an 
arrangement  to  allow  the  axis  of  the  lens  to  coincide  with  the  axis  of 
the  table.  The  ratio  of  speed  between  the  sheave  and  turn-table  is 
arranged  by  belt  and  properly  sized  pulleys,  and  the  whole  can  be 
driven  either  by  hand  or  by  power.  The  sheave  merely  serves  as  a 
guide  to  the  tool  in  its  path,  and  the  lens  may  either  be  worked  on 
the  turn-table  or  upon  a  chuck  attached  to  the  tool-rod.  The  work 
upon  the  lens  is  thus  to  a  great  extent  independent  of  the  error  of  the 
machine  through  shaking  or  bad  fitting  or  wear,  and  the  only  part  of 
the  machine  which  requires  really  first-class  work  is  the  axis  of  the 
turn-table,  which  (in  this  machine)  is  a  conical  bearing  at  top,  with 
steel  centre  below,  the  bearing  turned,  hardened,  and  then  ground  up 
true,  and  run  in  anti-friction  metal.  Other  details  might  be  given, 
but  these  are  probably  enough  for  present  purposes.  We  hope,  at 
some  future  time,  for  a  special  detail  of  Mr.  Lancaster's  interesting 
investigations  from  his  own  mind  and  pen. 


356  Astronomers  and  Students. 

self  with  his  three-inch  object-glass.  Then  there  was 
the  shoemaker  and  teacher,  and  eventually  the  first-rate 
maker  of  achromatic  instruments.  Look  also  at  the 
persons  whom  he  supplied  with  his  best  telescopes. 
Among  them  we  find  princes,  baronets,  clergymen, 
professors,  doctors,  solicitors,  manufacturers,  and  in- 
ventors. Then  we  come  to  the  portrait  painter,  who 
acquired  the  highest  supremacy  in  the  art  of  telescope- 
making;  then  to  Mr.  Lassell,  the  retired  brewer,  who 
left  his  great  instrument  to  the  nation;  and,  lastly,  to 
the  extraordinary  young  schoolmaster  of  Bainbridge, 
in  Yorkshire.  And  now,  before  I  conclude  this  last 
chapter,  I  have  to  relate  perhaps  the  most  extraordi- 
nary story  of  all — that  of  another  astronomer  in  hum- 
ble life,  in  the  person  of  a  slate  counter  at  Port  Pen- 
rhyn,  Bangor,  North  Wales. 

While  at  Birnam  I  received  a  letter  from  my  old 
friend,  the  Rev.  Charles  Wicksteed,  formerly  of  Leeds, 
calling  my  attention  to  this  case,  and  enclosing  an  ex- 
tract from  the  letter  of  a  young  lady,  one  of  his  cor- 
respondents at  Bangor.  In  that  letter  she  said :  "  What 
you  write  of  Mr.  Christmas  Evans  reminds  me  very 
much  of  a  visit  I  paid  a  few  evenings  ago  to  an  old 
man  in  Upper  Bangor.  He  works  on  the  quay,  but  has 
a  very  decided  taste  for  astronomy,  his  leisure  time 
being  spent  in  its  study,  with  a  great  part  of  his  earn- 
ings. I  went  there  with  some  friends  to  see  an  im- 
mense telescope,  which  he  has  made  almost  entirely 
without  aid,  preparing  the  glasses  as  far  as  possible 
himself,  and  sending  them  away  merely  to  have  their 
concavity  changed.  He  showed  us  all  his  treasures 
with  the  greatest  delight,  explaining  in  English,  but 
substituting  Welsh  when  at  a  loss.  He  has  scarcely 
ever  been  at  school,  but  has  learned  English  entirely 
from  books.  Among  other  things  he  showed  us  were 
a  Greek  Testament  and  a  Hebrew  Bible,  both  of  which 


"Jwnbo"  357 

he  can  read.  His  largest  telescope,  which  is  several 
yards  long,  he  has  named  ( Jumbo,'  and  through  it  he 
told  us  he  saw  the  snowcap  on  the  pole  of  Mars.  He 
had  another  smaller  telescope,  made  by  himself,  and 
had  a  spectroscope  in  process  of  making.  He  is  now 
quite  old,  but  his  delight  in  his  studies  is  still  un- 
bounded and  unabated.  It  seems  so  sad  that  he  has 
had  no  right  opportunity  for  developing  his  talent." 

Mr.  Wicksteed  was  very  much  interested  in  the  case, 
and  called  my  attention  to  it,  that  I  might  add  the 
story  to  my  repertory  of  self -helping  men.  While  at 
York  I  received  a  communication  from  Miss  Grace 
Ellis,  the  young  lady  in  question,  informing  me  of  the 
name  of  the  astronomer — John  Jones,  Albert  Street, 
Upper  Bangor — and  intimating  that  he  would  be  glad 
to  see  me  any  evening  after  six.  As  railways  have 
had  the  effect  of  bringing  places  very  close  together  in 
point  of  time — making  of  Britain,  as  it  were,  one  great 
town — and  as  the  autumn  was  brilliant,  and  the  holi- 
day season  not  at  an  end,  I  had  no  difficulty  in  diverg- 
ing from  my  journey,  and  taking  Bangor  on  my  way 
homeward.  Starting  from  York  in  the  morning,  and 
passing  through  Leeds,  Manchester,  and  Chester,  I 
reached  Bangor  in  the  afternoon,  and  had  my  first  in- 
terview with  Mr.  Jones  that  very  evening. 

I  found  him,  as  Miss  Grace  Ellis  had  described,  ac- 
tive, vigorous,  and  intelligent;  his  stature  short,  his 
face  well-formed,  his  eyes  keen  and  bright.  I  was  first 
shown  into  his  little  parlor  down-stairs,  furnished  with 
his  books  and  some  of  his  instruments;  I  was  then 
taken  to  his  tiny  room  up-stairs,  where  he  had  his  big 
reflecting  telescope,  by  means  of  which  he  had  seen, 
through  the  chamber  window,  the  snowcap  of  Mars. 
He  is  so  fond  of  philology  that  I  found  he  had  no  fewer 
than  twenty-six  dictionaries,  all  bought  out  of  his  own 
earnings.     "  I  am  fond  of  all  knowledge,"  he  said — "  of 


358  Astronomers  and  Students. 

Reuben,  Dan,  and  Issachar;  but  I  have  a  favorite,  a 
Benjamin,  and  that  is  astronomy.  I  would  sell  all  of 
them  into  Egypt,  but  preserve  my  Benjamin."  His 
story  is  briefly  as  follows: 

"I  was  born  at  Bryngwyn  Bach,  Anglesey,  in  1818, 
and  I  am  sixty-five  years  old.  I  got  the  little  educa- 
tion I  have,  when  a  boy.  Owen  Owen,  who  was  a 
cousin  of  my  mother's,  kept  a  school  at  a  chapel  in  the 
village  of  Dwyrain,  in  Anglesey.  It  was  said  of  Owen 
that  he  never  had  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  year's 
schooling,  so  that  he  could  not  teach  me  much.  I  went 
to  his  school  at  seven,  and  remained  with  him  about  a 
year.  Then  he  left;  and  some  time  afterwards  I  w^ent 
for  a  short  period  to  an  old  preacher's  school,  at  Bryn- 
sieneyn  chapel.  There  I  learned  but  little,  the  teacher 
being  negligent.  He  allowed  the  children  to  play  to- 
gether too  much,  and  he  punished  them  for  slight  of- 
fences, making  them  obstinate  and  disheartened.  But 
I  remember  his  once  saying  to  the  other  children  that 
I  ran  through  my  little  lesson  '  like  a  coach.'  How- 
ever, when  I  was  about  twelve  years  old,  my  father 
died,  and  in  losing  him  I  lost  almost  all  the  little  I  had 
learned  during  the  short  periods  I  had  been  at  school. 
Then  I  went  to  work  for  the  farmers. 

"In  this  state  of  ignorance  I  remained  for  years, 
until  the  time  came  wThen  on  Sunday  I  used  to  saddle 
the  old  black  mare  for  Cadwalladr  Williams,  the  Cal- 
vinist  Methodist  preacher,  at  Pen  Ceint,  Anglesey; 
and  after  he  had  ridden  away,  I  used  to  hide  in  his  li- 
brary during  the  sermon,  and  there  I  learned  a  little 
that  I  shall  not  soon  forget.  In  that  way  I  had  many 
a  draught  of  knowledge,  as  it  were,  by  stealth.  Hav- 
ing a  strong  taste  for  music,  I  was  much  attracted  by 
choral  singing;  and  on  Sundays  and  in  the  evenings  I 
tried  to  copy  out  airs  from  different  books,  and  accus- 
tomed my  hand  a  little  to  writing.     This  tendency 


John  Jones's  Education.  350 

was,  however,  choked  within  me  by  too  much  work 
with  the  cattle,  and  by  other  farm  labor.  In  a  word, 
I  had  but  little  fair  weather  in  my  search  for  knowl- 
edge. One  thing  enticed  me  from  another,  to  the 
detriment  of  my  plans;  some  fair  Eve  often  standing 
with  an  apple  in  hand,  tempting  me  to  taste  of  that. 

"The  old  preacher's  books  at  Pen  Ceint  were  in 
Welsh.  I  had  not  yet  learned  English,  but  tried  to 
learn  it  by  comparing  one  line  in  the  English  New 
Testament  with  the  same  line  in  the  Welsh.  This 
was  the  Hamiltonian  method,  and  the  way  in  which  I 
learned  most  languages.  I  first  got  an  idea  of  astron- 
omy from  reading  'The  Solar  System,'  by  Dr.  Dick, 
translated  into  Welsh  by  Eleazar  Roberts  of  Liverpool. 
That  book  I  found  on  Sundays  in  the  preacher's  libra- 
ry; and  many  a  sublime  thought  it  gave  me.  It  was 
comparatively  easy  to  understand. 

"  When  I  was  about  thirty  I  was  taken  very  ill,  and 
could  no  longer  work.  I  then  went  to  Bangor  to  con- 
sult Dr.  Humphry s.  After  I  got  better  I  found  work 
at  the  port  at  125.  a  week.  I  was  employed  in  count- 
ing the  slates,  or  loading  the  ships  in  the  harbor  from 
the  railway  trucks.  I  lodged  in  Fwn  Deg,  near  where 
Hugh  Williams,  Gatehouse,  then  kept  a  navigation 
school  for  young  sailors.  I  learned  navigation,  and 
soon  made  considerable  progress.  I  also  learned  a  lit- 
tle arithmetic.  At  first  nearly  all  the  young  men  were 
more  advanced  than  myself;  but  before  I  left  matters 
were  different,  and  the  Scripture  words  became  verified 
— 'the  last  shall  be  first.'  I  remained  with  Hugh 
Williams  six  months  and  a  half.  During  that  time  I 
went  twice  through  the  'Tutor's  Assistant,'  and  a 
month  before  I  left  I  was  taught  mensuration.  That 
is  all  the  education  I  received,  and  the  greater  part  of 
it  was  during  my  by-hours. 

"  I  got  to  know  English  pretty  well,  though  Welsh 


360  Astronomers  and  Students. 

was  the  language  of  those  about  me.  From  easy  books 
I  went  to  those  more  difficult.  I  was  helped  in  my 
pronunciation  of  English  by  comparing  the  words  with 
the  phonetic  alphabet,  as  published  by  Thomas  Gee  of 
Denbigh,  in  1853.  With  my  spare  earnings  I  bought 
books,  especially  when  my  wages  began  to  rise.  Mr. 
Wyatt,  the  steward,  was  very  kind,  and  raised  my  pay 
from  time  to  time  at  his  pleasure.  I  suppose  I  was 
willing,  correct,  and  faithful.  I  improved  my  knowl- 
edge by  reading  books  on  astronomy.  I  got,  among 
others,  'The  Mechanism  of  the  1  leavens,1  by  Denison 
Olmstead,  an  American;  a  very  understandable  book. 
Learning  English,  which  was  a  foreign  language  to 
me,  led  me  t<>  learn  other  languages.  I  took  pleasure 
in  finding  out  the  roots  or  radixes  of  words,  and  from 
time  to  time  I  added  foreign  dictionaries  to  my  little 

library,     lint  I  took  most  pleasure  in  astronomy. 

"The  perusal  of  Sir  John  BerschePs  'Outlines  <»f 
Astronomy,'  and  of  his  'Treatise  on  the  Telescope,1  set 

my   mind   on  lire.      1   conceived  the   idea   of  making  a 

telescope  of  my  own,  for  1  could  not  buy  one.  While 
reading  the  Mechanic**  Magazim  I  observed  the  ac- 
counts of  men  \vh<>  made  telescopes.  Why  should  not 
I  do  the  same?  Of  course  it  was  a  matter  of  great 
difficulty  to  one  who  knew  comparatively  little  of  the 
use  of  tools.  Bat  I  had  a  willing  mind  and  willing 
hands.  So  I  Bet  to  work.  I  think  I  made  my  first 
telescope  about  twenty  years  ago.  It  was  thirty-six- 
inches  long,  and  the  tube  was  made  of  pasteboard.  I 
got  the  glasses  from  Liverpool  for  As.  Qd.  Captain 
Owens,  of  the  ship  Talacra,  bought  them.  lie  also 
bought  for  me,  at  a  bookstall,  the  Greek  Lexicon  and 
the  Greek  New  Testament,  for  which  he  paid  75.  6d. 
"With  my  new  telescope  I  could  see  Jupiter's  four  sat- 
ellites, the  craters  on  the  moon,  and  some  of  the  double 
stars.     It  was  a  wonderful  pleasure  to  me. 


Constructing  a  Telescope.  361 


"But  I  was  not  satisfied  with  the  instrument.  I 
wanted  a  bigger  and  a  more  perfect  one.  I  sold  it  and 
got  new  glasses  from  Solomon  of  London,  who  was  al- 
ways ready  to  trust  me.  I  think  it  was  about  the  year 
1868  that  I  began  to  make  a  reflecting  telescope.  I 
got  a  rough  disk  of  glass,  from  St.  Helens,  of  ten  inches' 
diameter.  It  took  me  from  nine  to  ten  days  to  grind 
and  polish  it  ready  for  parabolizing  and  silvering.  I 
did  this  by  hand  labor  with  the  aid  of  emery,  but  with- 
out a  lathe.  I  finally  used  rouge  instead  of  emery  in 
grinding  down  the  glass,  until  I  could  see  my  face  in 
the  mirror  quite  plain.  I  then  sent  the  eight-and-three- 
sixteenths-inch  disk  to  Mr.  George  Calvers  of  Chelms- 
ford, to  turn  my  spherical  curve  to  a  parabolic  curve, 
and  to  silver  the  mirror,  for  which  I  paid  him  £5.  I 
mounted  this  in  my  timber  tube;  the  focus  was  ten 
feet.  When  everything  was  complete  I  tried  my  in- 
strument on  the  sky,  and  found  it  to  have  good  defin- 
ing power.  The  diameter  of  the  other  glass  I  have 
made  is  a  little  under  six  inches. 

"You  ask  me  if  their  performance  satisfies  me? 
"Well;  I  have  compared  my  six-inch  reflector  with  a 
f our-and-a-quarter-inch  refractor,  through  my  window, 
with  a  power  of  one  hundred  and  one  hundred  and 
forty.  I  can't  say  which  was  the  best.  But  if  out  on 
a  clear  night,  I  think  my  reflector  would  take  more 
power  than  the  refractor.  However  that  may  be,  I 
saw  the  snowcap  on  the  planet  Mars  quite  plain;  and 
it  is  satisfactory  to  me  so  far.  With  respect  to  the 
eight-and-three-sixteenths-inch  glass,  I  am  not  quite 
satisfied  with  it  yet;  but  I  am  making  improvements, 
and  I  believe  it  will  reward  my  labor  in  the  end." 

Besides  these  instruments  John  Jones  has  an  equa- 
torial which  is  mounted  on  a  tripod-stand,  made  by 
himself.  It  contains  the  right  ascension,  declination, 
and  azimuth  index,  all  neatly  carved  upon  slate.     In 

16 


362  Astronomers  and  Students. 

his  spectroscope  he  makes  his  prisms  out  of  the  sky- 
lights used  id  vessels.  These  he  grinds  down  to  suit 
his  purpose.  I  have  not  been  able  to  go  into  the 
complete  detail  of  the  manner  in  which  he  effects  the 
grinding  of  his  glasses.  It  is  perhaps  too  technical  to 
be  illustrated  in  words,  which  are  full  of  focuses,  pa- 
rabolas, and  convexities.  But  enough  may  be  gathered 
from  the  above  account  to  give  an  idea  of  the  wonder- 
ful tenacity  of  this  aged  student,  who  counts  his  slates 
into  the  ships  by  day,  and  devotes  his  evenings  to  the 
perfecting  of  his  astronomical  instruments. 

But  not  only  is  he  an  astronomer  and  philologist; 
he  is  also  a  bard,  and  his  poetry  is  milch  admired  in 
the  district,      lb'  writes  in  Welsh,  not  in  English,  and 

signs  himself  "loan,  of  Bryugwyii  Bach,"  the  place 

where   he   was   born.       Indeed,  In-    is   still   at  a  loss    for 

words  when  ho  speaks  in  English,  lie  usually  inter- 
lards his  conversation  with  passages  in  Welsh,  which 

is  his  mother-tongue.  A  friend  has,  however,  done  me 
the  favor  to  translate  two  of  John  Jones's  poems  into 

English.    The  first  is  "The  Telescope": 

"To  Heaven  it  points,  where  rules  the  Sun 
In  golden  gall'lie-^  bright  ; 
And  the  j>ale  Moon  in  silver  1. 
Makes  dalliance  in  the  night. 

"  It  sweeps  with  c.nglc  glances 
The  sky,  its  myriad  throng, 
That  myriad  throng  to  marshal 
And  bring  to  ns  their  song. 

"Orb  upon  orb  it  follows, 
As  oft  they  intertwine, 
And  worlds  in  vast  processions 
As  if  in  battle  line. 

"It  loves  all  things  created 
To  follow  and  to  trace  ; 
And  never  fears  to  penetrate 
The  dark  abyss  of  space." 


The  Bard's  Verses.  363 

The  next  is  to  "The  Comet": 

"A  maiden  fair,  with  light  of  stars  bedecked, 
Starts  out  of  space  at  Jove's  command  ; 
With  visage  wild,  and  long,  dishevelled  hair, 
Speeds  she  along  her  starry  course  ; 
The  hosts  of  heaven  regards  she  not — 
Fain  would  she  scorn  them  all  except  her  father,  Sol, 
Whose  mighty  influence  her  headlong  course  doth  all  control.'' 

The  following  translation  may  also  be  given.  It 
shows  that  the  bard  is  not  without  a  spice  of  wit.  A 
fellow-workman  teased  him  to  write  some  lines,  when 
John  Jones,  in  a  seemingly  innocent  manner,  put  some 
questions,  and  ascertained  that  he  had  once  been  a  tai- 
lor. Accordingly,  this  epigram  was  written,  and  ap- 
peared in  the  local  paper  the  week  after:  "  To  a  Quon- 
dam Tailor,  now  a  Slate-teller": 

"To  thread  and  needle  now  good-bye, 
With  slates  I  aim  at  riches; 
The  scissors  will  I  ne'er  more  ply, 
Nor  make,  but  order,  breeches."* 

The  bilingual  speech  is  the  great  educational  diffi- 
culty of  Wales.  To  get  an  entrance  into  literature 
and  science  requires  a  knowledge  of  English ;  or,  if 
not  of  English,  then  of  French  or  German.  But  the 
Welsh  language  stands  in  the  way.  Few  literary  or 
scientific  Avorks  are  translated  into  Welsh.  Hence  the 
great  educational  difficulty  continues,  and  is  maintained 
from  year  to  year,  by  patriotism  and  Eisteddfods. 

Possibly  the  difficulties  to  be  encountered  may  occa- 
sionally evoke  unusual  powers  of  study;  but  this  can 
only  occur  in  exceptional  cases.  While  at  Bangor,  Mr. 
Cadwalladr  Davies  read  to  me  the  letter  of  a  student 
and  professor  whose  passion  for  knowledge  is  of  an 
extraordinary  character.     While  examined  before  the 

*  The  translations  are  made  by  W.  Cadwalladr  Davies,  Esq. 


36tt  Astronomers  and  Students. 

Parliamentary  Committee  appointed  to  inquire  into 
the  condition  of  intermediate  and  higher  education  in 
Wales  and  Monmouthshire,  Mr.  Davies  gave  evidence 
relating  to  this  and  other  remarkable  cases,  of  which 
the  following  is  an  abstract,  condensed  by  himself: 

"The  night-schools  in  the  quarry  districts  have  been 
doing  a  very  great  work;  and,  if  the  committee  will 
allow  me,  I  will  read  an  extract  from  a  letter  which  I 
received  from  Mr.  Bradley  Jones,  master  of  the  Board 
Schools  at  Llanarmon,  near  Mold,  Flintshire,  who  some 
years  ago  kept  a  very  flourishing  night-school  in  the 
neighborhood.  He  says,  'During  tbe  whole  of  the 
time  (fourteen  years)  that  I  was  at  Carneddi  I  carried 
on  these  schools,  and  I  believe  I  have  had  more  expe- 
rience of  such  institutions  than  any  teacher  in  North 
Wales,  For  Beveral  years  about  one  hundred  and  twen- 
ty scholar-  used  t«>  attend  the  Carneddi  night-school 
in  the  winter  months,  four  evenings  a  week.  Near- 
ly all  were  quarrymen,  from  fourteen  to  twenty-one 
years  of  age,  and  engaged  at  work  from  seven  a.m.  to 
live  thirty  p.m.  So  intense  was  their  desire  for  educa- 
tion, thai  BOme  of  them  had  to  walk  a  distance  of  two 

or  even  three  mile-  to  school.    These, besides  working 

hard  all  day,  had  to  walk  BU  miles  in  the  one  case  and 
nine  in  the  other  before  school-time, in  addition  to  the 
walk  home  afterwards.  Several  of  them  used  to  at- 
tend all  the  year  round,  even  coming  to  me  for  lessons 
in  summer  before  going  to  work,  as  well  as  in  the  even- 
ing. Indeed.,  so  anxious  were  some  of  them,  that  they 
would  often  come  for  lessons  as  early  as  live  o'clock  in 
the  morning.  This  may  appear  almost  incredible,  but 
any  of  the  managers  of  the  Carneddi  School  could  cor- 
roborate the  statement. 

"  '  I  have  now  in  my  mind's  eye,'  continues  Mr.  Brad- 
ley, ■  several  of  these  young  men,  who,  by  dint  of  in- 
defatigable labor  and  self-denial,  ultimately  qualified 


Welsh  Enthusiasm  for  Education.  365 

themselves  for  posts  in  which  a  good  education  is  a 
sine  quel  non.  Some  of  them  are  to-day  quarry-man- 
agers, professional  men,  certificated  teachers,  and  min- 
isters of  the  gospel.  Five  of  them  are  at  the  present 
time  students  at  Bala  College.  One  got  a  situation  in 
the  Glasgow  post-office  as  letter-carrier.  During  his 
leisure  hours  he  attended  the  lectures  at  one  of  the 
medical  schools  of  that  city,  and  in  course  of  time 
gained  his  diploma.  He  is  now  practising  as  a  sur- 
geon, and  I  understand  with  signal  success.  This 
gentleman  worked  in  the  Penrhyn  Quarry  until  he 
was  twenty  years  old.  I  could  give  many  more  in- 
stances of  the  resolute  and  self-denying  spirit  with 
which  the  young  quarrymen  of  Bethesda  sought  to 
educate  themselves.  The  teachers  of  the  other  schools 
in  that  neighborhood  could  give  similar  examples;  for, 
during  the  winter  months  there  used  to  be  no  less  than 
three  hundred  evening  scholars  under  instruction  in  the 
different  schools.  The  Bethesda  booksellers  could  tell 
a  tale  that  would  surprise  our  English  friends.  I  have 
been  informed  by  one  of  them  that  he  has  sold  to  young 
quarrymen  an  immense  number  of  such  works  as  Lord 
Macaulay's,  Stuart  Mill's,  and  Professor  Fawcett's; 
and  it  is  no  uncommon  sio^ht  to  find  these  and  similar 
works  read  and  studied  by  the  young  quarrymen  dur- 
ing the  dinner-hour.' 

"I  can  give,"  proceeds  Mr.  Cadwalladr  Davies,  "one 
remarkable  instance  to  show  the  struggles  which  young 
Welshmen  have  to  undertake  in  order  to  get  education. 
The  boy  in  question,  the  son  of  'poor  but  honest  pa- 
rents,' left  the  small  national  school  of  his  native  vil- 
lage when  he  was  twelve  and  a  half  year3  of  age,  and 
then  followed  his  father's  occupation  of  shoemaking 
until  he  was  sixteen  and  a  half  years  of  age.  After 
working  hard  at  his  trade  for  four  years,  he,  his  broth- 
er, and  two  fellow-apprentices  formed  themselves  into 


366  Astronomers  and  Students. 

a  sort  of  club  to  learn  shorthand,  the  whole  matter 
being  kept  a  profound  secret.  They  had  no  teachers, 
and  they  met  at  the  gas-works  sitting  opposite  the  re- 
torts, on  a  bench  supported  at  each  end  with  bricks. 
They  did  not  penetrate  far  into  the  mysteries  of  Welsh 
shorthand;  they  soon  abandoned  the  attempt,  and  in- 
duced the  village  schoolmaster  to  open  a  night-school. 
"This,  however,  did  cot  last  long.  The  young  Cris- 
pin was  returning  late  one  night  from  Llanrwst,  in 
company  with  a  lad  of  the  same  age,  and  both  having 
heard  much  of  the  blessings  of  education  from  a  Scotch 
lady  who  took  a  kindly  interest  in  them,  their  ambition 
was  inflamed,  and  they  entered  into  a  solemn  compact 
that  they  WOUld  thenceforward  devote  themselves  body 
and  BOUl  to  the  attainment  of  an  academical  degree. 
Yet  they  were  both  poor.      One  WAS  but  a  shoemaker's 

apprentice,  while  the  other  was  a  pupil  teacher,  earn- 
ing but  a  miserable  weekly  pittance.  One  could  do 
the  parts  of  Bpeech;  the  other  could  not  One  had 
struggled  with  the  pons  asinorum  ;  the  other  had  nev- 
er -ecu  it.  I  may  mention  that  the  young  pupil  teach- 
er is  now  a  curate  in  the  Church  of  England.      He  is  a 

graduate  of  Cambridge  University,  and  a  prizeman  of 

Clare  College.      Hut  to  return  to  the  little  shoemaker. 
"After   returning   home    from    Llanrwst    he   disbur- 
dened his  heart  to  his  mother,  and  told  her  ihat  shoe- 
making,  which  until  now  he  had  purMied  with  extraor- 
dinary Best,  eould  no  longer  interest  him.      His  mother, 

who  was  eqnal  to  the  emergency,  sent  the  boy  to  a 
teacher  of  the  old  school,  who  had  himself  worked  his 

way  from  the  plough.  After  the  exercise  of  consider- 
able diplomacy,  an  arrangement  was  arrived  at  where- 
by the  youth  vas  to  g<>  to  school  on  Mondays,  Wednes- 
days, and  Fridays,  and  make  shoes  during  the  remaining 
days  of  the  week.  "This  suited  him  admirably.  That 
very  night  he  seized  upon  a  geography,  and  began  to 


An  Extraordinary  Ambition.  367 

learn  the  counties  of  England  and  Wales.  The  fear 
of  failure  never  left  him  for  two  hours  together,  ex- 
cept when  he  slept.  The  plan  of  work  was  faithfully 
kept,  though  by  this  time  shoemaking  had  lost  its 
charms.  He  shortened  his  sleeping  hours,  and  rose  at 
any  moment  that  he  awoke — at  two,  three,  or  four  in 
the  morning.  He  got  his  brother,  who  had  been  plod- 
ding with  him  over  shorthand,  to  study  horticulture 
and  fruit  and  vegetable  culture ;  and  that  brother 
shortly  after  took  a  high  place  in  an  examination  held 
by  the  Royal  Horticultural  Society.  For  a  time,  how- 
ever, they  worked  together;  and  often  did  their  moth- 
er get  up  at  four  o'clock  in  the  depth  of  winter,  light 
their  tire,  and  return  to  bed  after  calling  them  up  to 
the  work  of  self-culture.  Even  this  did  not  satisfy 
their  devouring  ambition.  There  was  a  bed  in  the 
workshop,  and  they  obtained  permission  to  sleep  there. 
Then  they  followed  their  own  plans.  The  young  gar- 
dener would  sit  up  till  one  or  two  in  the  morning,  and 
wake  his  brother,  who  had  gone  to  bed  as  soon  as  he 
had  given  up  work  the  night  before.  Now  he  got  up 
and  studied  through  the  small  hours  of  the  morning 
until  the  time  came  when  he  had  to  transfer  his  indus- 
try to  shoemaking,  or  go  to  school  on  the  appointed 
days  after  the  distant  eight  o'clock  had  come.  His* 
brother  had  got  worn  out.  Early  sleep  seemed  to  be 
the  best.  They  then  both  went  to  bed  about  eight 
o'clock,  and  got  the  policeman  to  call  them  up  before 
retiring  himself. 

"So  the  struggle  went  on,  until  the  faithful  old 
schoolmaster  thought  that  his  young  pupil  might  try 
the  examination  at  the  Bangor  Normal  College.  He 
was  now  eighteen  years  of  age;  and  it  was  eighteen 
months  since  the  time  when  he  began  to  learn  the 
counties  of  England  and  Wales.  He  went  to  Bangor, 
rigged  out  in  his  brother's  coat  and  waistcoat,  which 


36S  Astronomers  and  Students. 

were  better  than  his  own,  ami  with  his  brother's  watch 
in  his  pocket,  to  time  himself  in  his  examinations.  He 
went  through  his  examination,  but  returned  home 
thinking  he  had  failed.  Nevertheless,  he  had,  in  the 
meantime,  on  the  strength  of  a  certificate  which  he 
had  obtained  six  months  before,  in  an  examination 
held  by  the  Society  of  Arts  and  Sciences  in  Liverpool, 
applied  for  a  situation  as  teacher  in  a  granunar-school 
at  Ormskirk,  in  Lancashire.  He  succeeded  in  his  ap- 
plication, and  had  been  there  for  only  eight  days  when 

he  received  a  letter  from  Mr.  Rowlands,  Principal  of 
the  Bangor  Normal  College,  informing  him  that   he 

had  passed  at   the  head  of  the  list,  and  WUS  the  highest 

non-pupil  teacher  examined  by  the  British  and  Foreign 
Society.     Having  obtained  permission  from  his  master 

to  leave,  he  packed  his  clothes  and  his  few  book*.  Ho 
had  m>t  enough  money  tO  carry  him  home;  but,  un- 
asked, tlie  master  of  the  school  gave  him  LOS.  He  ar- 
rived home  about  three  «. 'clock  on  a  Sunday  morning, 
after  a  walk  of  eleven  miles  over  a  lonely  road  from 
the  place  where  the  train  had  Btopped.  lie  reeled  on 
the  way,  ami  found  the  country  reeling  too.      He  had 

been  sleeping  eight  nights  in  a  damp  bed.  six  weeks 
of  the  Bangor  Session  passed,  and  during  that  time  he 
had  been  delirious,  and  was  too  weak  to  >ii  up  in  bed. 
Bat  th  ad  time  he  crossed  the  threshold  of  his 

home  he  made  for  Bangor, and  got  back  his  'position,' 
which  was  all-important  to  him,  and  kept  it  all  through. 
"Having  finished  his  course  at  Bangor  lie  went  to 

keep  a   school  at    IJrynaman;   he   endeavored  to   studv 

but  could  m>t.  After  two  years  In-  gai  e  up  t  he  school, 
and  with  £60  saved  he  faced  the  world  once  more. 
There  was  a  scholarship  of  the  value-  of  fin  a  year,  for 
three  years,  attached  to  one  of  the  Scotch  Oniversil 

to  be  competed  for.  lie  knew  the  Latin  Grammar,  and 
had,  with  help,  translated  one  of  the  books  of  Caesar. 


Obtaining  a  Bursary.  369 

Of  Greek  he  knew  nothing,  save  the  letters  and  the 
first  declension  of  nouns;  but  in  May  he  began  to  read 
in  earnest  at  a  farmhouse.  He  worked  every  day  from 
6  a.m.  to  12  p.m.  with  only  an  hour's  intermission.  He 
studied  the  six  Latin  and  two  Greek  books  prescribed; 
he  did  some  Latin  composition  unaided;  brushed  up 
his  mathematics,  and  learned  something  of  the  history 
of  Greece  and  Rome.  In  October,  after  five  months 
of  hard  work,  he  underwent  an  examination  for  the 
scholarship,  and  obtained  it;  beating  his  opponent  by 
twenty-eight  marks  in  a  thousand.  He  then  went  up 
to  the  Scotch  University,  and  passed  all  the  examina- 
tions for  his  ordinary  M.A.  degree  in  two  years  and  a 
half.  On  his  first  arrival  at  the  university  he  found 
that  he  could  not  sleep ;  but  he  wearily,  yet  victoriously, 
plodded  on;  took  a  prize  in  Greek,  then  the  first  prize 
in  philosophy,  the  second  prize  in  logic,  the  medal  in 
English  literature,  and  a  few  other  prizes. 

"He  had  £40  when  he  first  arrived  in  Scotland;  and 
he  carried  away  with  him  a  similar  sum  to  Germany, 
whither  he  went  to  study  for  honors  in  philosophy. 
He  returned  home  with  little  in  his  pocket,  borrowing 
money  to  go  to  Scotland,  where  he  sat  for  honors  and 
for  the  scholarship.  He  got  his  first  honors,  and  what 
was  more  important  at  the  time,  money  to  go  on  with. 
He  now  lives  on  the  scholarship  which  he  took  at  that 
time;  is  an  assistant  professor;  and,  in  a  fortnight,  will 
begin  a  course  of  lectures  for  ladies  in  connection  with 
his  university.  Writing  to  me  a  few  days  ago,*  he 
says,  'My  health,  broken  down  with  my  last  struggle, 
is  quite  restored,  and  I  live  with  the  hope  of  working 
on.  Many  have  worked  more  constantly,  but  few  have 
worked  more  intensely.  I  found  kindness  on  every 
hand  always,  but  had  I  failed  in  a  single  instance  I 

*  This  evidence  was  given  by  Mr.  W.  Cadwalladr  Davies  on  the 
28th  of  October,  1880. 

16* 


370  Astronomers  and  Students, 

should  have  met  with  entire  bankruptcy.  The  failure 
would  have  been  ruinous.  ...  I  thank  God  for  the 
struggle,  hut  would  not  like  to  see  a  dog  try  it  again. 
There  are  droves  of  lads  in  Wales  that  would  creep  op, 
but  they  cannot  Poverty  lias  too  heavy  a  hand  for 
them."'* 

The  gentleman  whose  brief  history  is  thus  summarily 
given  by  Mr.  Daviefl  is  now  well  known  as  a  professor 
of  philosophy;  and,  if  his  health  be  spared,  he  will  be- 
come still  better  known.  lb1  is  the  author  of  several 
important  works  on  "  .Moral  Philosophy,"  published  by 
a  leading  London  linn;  and  more  works  are  announced 
from  his  pen.      The  victorious  struggle  for  knowledge 

which  we  have  recounted  might  possibly  be  equalled, 
but  it  could  not  possibly  be  surpassed. 

There  are,  however,  as  Mr.  Davies  related  t<>  the 
Parliamentary  Committee,  many  instances  of  Welsh 
Btudents  —  most  of  them  originally  quarrymen,  who 
keep  themselves  at  school  by  means  of  the  savings  ef- 
fected from  manual  labor,  u  in  frequent  oases  eked  out 

and  helped  by  the  kindness  of  friends  and  neighbors  " — 

who  Btruggle  up  through  many  difficulties, and  eventu- 
ally achieve  -  in  the  best  sense  of  the  term. 
"One  young  man" — a^  the  teacher  of  a  grammar- 
Bchool,  within  two  miles  of  Bangor,  related  to  Mr.  Da- 
vies — "who  came  to  me  from  the  quarry  some  time 
a  gold-medallisl  at  Edinburgh  last  winter;" 

and  contributions  are  readily  made  by  the  quarrymen 
to  help  forward  any  young  man  who  displays  an  ear- 
not  desire  for  knowledge  in  Bcience  and  Literature. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  the  quarrymen  <>f  Car- 
narvonshire have  voluntarily  contributed  large  sums 
of  money  towards  the  establishment  of  the  University 
College  in  North  Wales — the  quarry  districts  in  that 
county  having  contributed  to  that  fund,  in  the  course 
of  three  years,  mostly  in  half-crown  subscriptions,  not 


The  North  Welsh  College.  371 

less  than  £508  4s.  4d.  —  "a  fact,"  says  Mr.  Davies, 
"  without  its  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  education  of 
any  country;"  the  most  striking  feature  being,  that 
these  collections  were  made  in  support  of  an  institution 
from  which  the  quarrymen  could  only  very  remotely 
derive  any  benefit. 

While  I  was  at  Bangor,  on  the  24th  of  August,  1883, 
the  news  arrived  that  the  Committee  of  Selection  had 
determined  that  Bangor  should  be  the  site  for  the  in- 
tended North  Wales  University  College.  The  news 
rapidly  spread,  and  great  rejoicings  prevailed  through- 
out the  borough,  which  had  just  been  incorporated. 
The  volunteer  band  played  through  the  streets,  the 
church  bells  rang  merry  peals,  and  gay  flags  were  dis- 
played from  nearly  every  window.  There  never  was 
such  a  triumphant  display  before  in  the  cause  of  uni- 
versity education. 

As  Mr.  Cadwalladr  Davies  observed  at  the  banquet, 
which  took  place  on  the  following  day:  "The  estab- 
lishment of  the  new  institution  will  mark  the  dawn  of 
a  new  era  in  the  history  of  the  Welsh  people.  He 
looked  to  it,  not  only  as  a  means  of  imparting  academi- 
cal knowledge  to  the  students  within  its  walls,  but  also 
as  a  means  of  raisins;  the  intellectual  and  moral  tone 
of  the  whole  people.  They  were  fond  of  quoting  the 
saying  of  a  great  English  writer,  that  there  was  some- 
thing Grecian  in  the  Celtic  race,  and  that  the  Celtic 
was  the  refining  element  in  the  British  character;  but 
such  remarks,  often  accompanied  as  they  were  with 
offensive  comparisons  from  Eisteddfod  platforms, 
would  in  future  be  put  to  the  test,  for  they  would,  with 
their  new  educational  machinery,  be  placed  on  a  foot- 
ing of  perfect  equality  with  the  Scotch  and  the  Irish 
people." 

And  here  must  come  to  an  end  the  character  history 
of  my  autumn  tour  in  Ireland,  Scotland,  Yorkshire,  and 


372  Astronomers  and  Students. 

"Wales.  I  bad  not  the  remotest  intention  when  setting 
out  of  collecting  information  and  writing  down  my 
recollections  of  the  journey.  But  the  persons  I  met, 
and  the  information  I  received,  were  of  no  small  inter- 
est— at  least  to  myself;  and  I  trust  that  the  reader  will 
derive  as  much  pleasure  from  perusing  my  observa- 
tions as  I  have  had  in  collecting  and  writing  them 
down.  I  do  think  that  the  remarkable  persons  whose 
history  and  characters  I  have  endeavored,  however 
briefly,  to  sketch,  will  be  found  to  afford  many  valua- 
ble and  important  lessons  of  Self-Help,  and  to  illus- 
trate how  the  moral  and  industrial  foundations  of  a 
country  may  be  built  up  and  established. 


INDEX. 


Aberdeen,  fishing  round  county  of, 
260  (note). 

Achromatic  telescopes,  336,  338,  353. 

Adventure,  English  maritime,  13. 

Aerated  waters,  Belfast,  279. 

Agriculture,  in  Scotland,  120 ;  in  Ire- 
land, 256. 

Algerine  pirates  in  English  Channel, 
25. 

America,  steamers  to,  3,  61,  307-312. 

Amsterdam,  greatness  of,  founded  on 
herring-bones,  268. 

Antwerp,  prosperity  of,  11. 

Applegarth's  inventions  in  newspa- 
per printing,  175,  192,  191,  209. 

Archimedes'  propeller,  4,  67. 

Armada,  Spanish,  18 ;  defeat  of,  20. 

Arts,  modernness  of,  1. 

Astronomers  and  students,  319-322, 
331,  342,  355-372. 

Astronomy,  uses  of  practical,  73. 

Asylum,  England  an,  12. 

Atmospheric  railway,  Murdock  and, 
150. 

Autobiographies,  of  Pett,  26 ;  of  E.  J. 
Harland,  284;  of  J.  Robertson,  322 ; 
of  T.  Cooke,  333 ;  of  S.  Lancaster, 
342;  of  J.  Jones,  357;  of  a  Welsh 
student,  366. 

Bacon  and  Donkin's  printing-ma- 
chine, 192. 

Bainbridge,  Yorkshire,  342. 

Ballingall,  W.,  weaver  and  astrono- 
mer, 320. 

Bandon,  its  former  manufactures,  259. 

Bangor,  Wales,  356,  367,  371. 

Banks,  Sir  J.,  and  steam  navigation, 
2 ;  and  Dr.  Priestly,  101. 


Barclay,  Sheriff,  321,  331. 

Bartholomew,  Massacre  of  St.,  12, 16. 

Bauer,  A.  F.,  Koenig's  partner,  159, 
161,  165,  176-178. 

Belfast,  industry  of,  270 ;  activity  of 
people  of,  272;  rise  of,  274,  275; 
shipping  of,  275 ;  ship-building  of, 
275 ;  linen  trade  of,  276 ;  various 
industries  of,  277 ;  improvement  of 
port  of,  278,  279 ;  variety  of  occu- 
pations of,  279,  280;  savings  of 
working  people,  282 ;  Harbor  Trust 
of,  283;  Ropework  Company  of, 
283. 

Bell  and  steam  navigation,  3,  56. 

Bellow  mill,  121. 

Benslev,  printer,  and  Koenig,  157, 
170-173. 

Bianconi,  Charles,  birth  and  educa- 
tion, 218 ;  leaves  Italy  for  Ireland, 
220;  print-seller,  220 ;  begins  busi- 
ness, 222 ;  gilder  and  carver,  223 ; 
and  Edward  Rice,  223 ;  settles  at 
Clonmel,  224;  his  wild  oats,  225, 
22C ;  starts  an  Irish  car,  228 ;  the 
opposition  car,  229;  builds  cars, 
231 ;  Waterford  election,  232 ;  his 
marriage,  233;  his  portrait,  233; 
his  cars  extended  over  Ireland, 
234-236;  carry  the  mails,  236; 
competitors,  238;  his  principles, 
238 ;  his  work  -  people,  239,  240 ; 
Sunday  traffic,  241 ;  interview  with 
Capt.  T.  Drummond,  242 ;  the  rail- 
ways, 242 ;  a  magistrate,  246 ;  Bi- 
anconi and  O'Connell,  233,  247; 
last  interview  with,  248;  death, 
251. 

Bibby,  Messrs.,  Liverpool,  300-308. 


374 


Index. 


Bilingual  difficulty  in  Wales,  303. 
Birkbeek.I)r.,and  screw-propeller, 58. 
Black-band  ironstone,  123. 
Blairgowrie  Junction,  322. 
Board  of  Longitude,  7.3.  82,  90, 03,  96, 

100,  101, 104. 
Boherlahan,  Tipperary.  249. 
"Bony"  in  Ireland.  221,  227.. 
Books,  first  printed  by  machine,  160- 

1G2,  171  ;  printed  by  steam.  206; 

W.  Clowes  and  steam -printing, 
207-216. 

Boulton,M..  and  Steamboats,  57  ;  and 
Dr.  Roebuck,  121  :  and  Murdock, 
at  SoliD.  126. 

Brake,  Tycho,  and  astronomical  in- 
struments. 88,  84. 

Bramak.  .1..  projectoi  of  screw,  "'7. 

Bridge,  Samuel,  846. 

Bristol,  ( labol  •'..  «,f,  13. 

British  mercantile  steamships,  l.  _! 

(iK  lie).  52. 

Brunei.  I.  K..  and  Great  Britain 
Brunei,  If.  I.,  and  printing-press,  167, 
191. 

Buckingham  Sir.  <  t  w.>rk-.  Y<t!x. 

836,  342. 
Building  societies,  Belfast,  5 
Boms  and  Blurdock,  122. 
Burn-,  M.  ROW,  818. 

Burroughs,  <  apt..  14, 21. 

;/.  naval  attack  mi.  21, 

Cahirand  Clonmel, 

1         -printing  machine,  I'd. 

Capital  and  security,  'J    -. 
('apron,  Kami,  GuildoWD,  826. 

Car-drivers  in  Ireland.  281  :  Bianco- 

ni's, 
Carneddi  schools,  W 
Carrick-on-Suir,  Bianconi  at,  228. 
Cars,  [rish,  Bianconi  and.  228,  227, 

2:;i-2:;7.  245. 
Cathay,  voyage  t.>.  l }.  22. 
Cavendish,  Capt.,  17. 

Cay  ley.  Sir  (,.. 

Chambers,  publishers,  211. 

Chance,  Messrs..  glass  disks,  340. 

Chancellor,  Capt.,  10. 

Chinese,  and  silk  manufacture,  106. 


Christian  Brothers,  Ireland,  224,  27)0 

Christie,  Mr.,  Astronomer-Koval,  103 
326. 

Chronometer,  marine,  and  J.  Ilarri 
son,  73-103. 

Claddagh,  Gahray,  254,  263,  264. 

Clark,  Alvan.  839,  311  (note). 
_•.  S..  and  gas-lighting,  141. 

Clonmel,  Bianconi  at.  221  226,  229. 

Clowes.  William,  birth  and  educa- 
tion, -J< >7  ;  begins  business  in  Lon- 
don. 208 :  removes  to  Northumber- 
land Court,  208;  action  by  Duke 
of  Northumberland,  209 ;  London 

publishers,     210;      Duke     Street, 

Soothwark,  210;  prints  for  the 
Society  of  Useful  Knowledge.  211; 
promol  ss  Parker,  publisher,  218; 
great  printing  establishment,  21 1 ; 
composing-machine,  216;  charac- 
ter, 215. 

Clyde  ship-building,  294,  296,  808. 

( Sockenzie,  Bshermen  of,  261, 

( iolnaghi  and  Bianconi,  219. 
misation,  spread  of,  21. 

( lolumbos  and  America,  1 1. 

Combe,  Barbour,  and  Combe,  280. 

( lomets,  hunting  for,  828. 

Commerce,  beginning  of  English,  5, 
10. 

Como.  Italians  from,  218,  219. 

ation   pendulum,   Harrison 

and.  80,  88. 

( iomposihg-machines,  215. 
( lonnemara,  Ireland.  258. 

cription  in  Italy,  21'.'. 

Constable,  Edinburgh,  ami  popular 
bo  210. 

Warwick,  first  frigate,  48. 

Contract  to  fight  foreigners.  7. 

ijit.,    and    Harrison's    chro- 
nometer. 101. 

Cooke,  .].,  York,  telescope -maker, 
331  :  bis  difficulties,  882;  prog- 
:  autobiography,  by  his 
widow,  333  336;  revives  achro- 
matic telescope-making,  836 ;  his 
object-glass  for  Mr.  Newall,  340; 
death,  341. 

Copeland,  Dr.,  Dunecht,  326,  329. 


Index. 


375 


Copley  (Lord  Lyndhurst)  and  W. 
Clowes,  210. 

Cork  Exhibition,  Mr.  Parnell's  speech 
at,  255. 

Cornish  adventurers,  Watt  and  Mur- 
dock  with,  127,  129. 

Cornish  fishermen,  261,  265,  267. 

Corporation  ground,  Belfast,  275, 
278. 

Corry  and  Co.,  Belfast,  317. 

Corunna,  20. 

Country  and  town,  343. 

Coupar  Angus  astronomer,  321. 

Cowper,  Edward,  and  steam-print- 
ing, 174 ;  invention  of  curved 
stereo-plates,  192;  improvements 
in  printing,  206;  evidence  before 
House  of  Commons,  212. 

Crawford  and  Balcarres,  Earl  of,  326. 

Crawford,  W.  S.,  Crawfordsburn,  278. 

Croall,  A.,  Stirling,  320. 

Crommelin,  the  Huguenot,  in  Ire- 
land, 271,  272,  276. 

Crotchet,  silk  weaver,  Derby,  111. 

Cumberland,  Earl  of,  and  ship  im- 
provement, 20. 

Canard  Co..  the,  294,  306. 

Curacoa.  the  steamer,  3. 

Customs,  Board  of,  and  Times,  180, 
183. 

Cvlindcr  printing-machine,  161, 162, 
'197. 

Dalswinton  Lake,  first  steamer  on,  3, 
55. 

Danes,  the,  and  Irish  fisheries,  262. 

Dargan,  Wm.,  and  Belfast,  278. 

Davics,  Sir  .1.,  on  Ulster,  274. 

Davies,  Cadualladr,  on  Welsh  Stu- 
dents, 358,  363,  369;  on  Celtic 
character,  371. 

Davis,  Capt.  John,  22. 

Davy,  Sir  II.,  on  gas-lighting,  139; 
<m  security  for  capital,  258. 

Dawes,  Rev.  W.  R.,  339,  340. 

Dead  reckoning,  85. 

Dean,  engineer,  raises  Royal  George 
and  Mary  Rose,  10. 

Denmark,  King  of,  received  in 
Thames,  34. 


Deptford  dockvard,  7. 

Derby  silk-mil"ls,lll,  113, 115, 118. 

Derwent,  silk-mill  on,  113. 

Dick,  Dr.,  lectures  and  works  on  as- 
tronomy, 323,  359. 

Docks  and  dockvards,  7,  23,  39,  275, 
279,  297. 

Dollond's  refractor  telescopes,  336. 

Donkin  and  Bacon's  printing-ma- 
chine, 192. 

Donkin  and  Fourdrinier's  paper- 
making  machine,  198. 

Dovle,  Dr.,  on  Irish  strikes,  259, 

Drake,  Sir  F.,  16,  17,  19,  21. 

Drogheda  and  Belfast,  276. 

Drummond,  Capt.  T..  and  Bianconi, 
242,  243,  248. 

Dry  ships,  "Jack"  on,  304. 

Dublin  industry,  259;  and  intoxi- 
cating drinks,  259  (note). 

Dudley,  Earl  of  Warwick,  15. 

Duncan,  Edward,  weaver,  320. 

Dunecht  Observatorv,  325,  328. 

Durforth,  Capt.,  14.  ■ 

Dutch  fisheries,  5 ;  and  English  ship- 
ping, 7;  workmen,  10;  maritime 
enterprise,  21 ;  and  Irish  and  Eng- 
lish fisheries,  262,  267,  268. 

East  India  Company,  beginning  of, 
22;  build  the  Trades  Increase, 
25;  employ  iron  shipping,  52. 

Edward  III.  and  English  navy,  5. 

Elder  and  Co.,  Glasgow,  308. 

El-Dorado,  15. 

Electricity,  discovery  of  uses  of,  2; 
Dr.  Harland  and,  285. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  her  navy  and  sea- 
men, 10;  asylum  for  foreigners, 
12;  excommunicated,  12;  mari- 
time adventurers,  14-16;  colonies 
planted,  21 ;  mercantile  marine, 
23;  silk  stockings,  108. 

Ellis,  Miss  G.,  357. 

Engine,  steam,  discovery  of,  2;  silk 
throwing,  110,  112,  117  (note). 

Engineers,  foreign  and  English,  5. 

England,  modern,  1,  5,  12. 

English  commerce  and  fisheries,  5, 7, 
9,  10,  13,  23,  24,  272-274. 


376 


Index. 


Ericsson,  Capr.,  and  screw  propeller, 

62;  history  of,  G2-G5. 
Essex,  Earl  of,  21. 
Exeter  shipping  and  pirates,25(note). 

Faction-fights,  Ireland,  221. 

Faroni  and  Bianconi,  219,  222. 

Fisheries,  English  and  Scotch,  5, 
2G1.  267. 

Fisheries,  Irish,  260-267,  269,  270. 

Fish  skins,  Murdock  and,  150. 

Flamstecd,  Astronomer-Royal,  73. 

Flanders,  commerce  of,  5,  7,  10;  In- 
quisition established  in,  11. 

Fletcher,  of  Saltoun,  repealer  of 
l'n  imi.  120. 

Foley  and  nail-making,  110. 

Folkes,  President  of  Royal  Society, 
and  Harrison,  88,94* 

Foreign  correspondence,  Time*  and, 
185. 

Foreigners  and  English  engineering, 
4,6,8,  10. 

Fonrdrinier  and  paper-making  ma- 
chine, 188. 

Fraucnhofer,  optician.  837. 

Frobisher,  Capt..  15,  21. 

Fulton  and  steam  navigation,  B,  66. 

Gabota,  John,  Bristol,  13. 

Galton,  F.,  on  Winsor,  110  (note). 

Galway,  decay  of,  254  :  ii-hcrics  of, 
254)268, 

Garay,  Blasoo,  and  paddle-boat  - 

Garfield,  President,  on  labor,  264. 

Gas,  Mnrdock's  discovery,  for  limit- 
ing purposes,  184;   Bobo  lit  by, 
138;  towns  lit  by,  111.142. 
jl       Gascoigne,  W.,  and  telescope,  84. 
^       (Jed,  inventor  of  stereotyping,  195. 

Genoa,  ships  of,  6. 

Gentleman,  Tobias,  and  English  fish- 
eries, 268. 

Gilbert.  Sir  II.,  21. 

Grace  de  Dieu,  the,  G. 

Graham,  G..  and  Harrison,  80, 82, 90, 
92. 

Gray,  Mr.,  York,  335, 338. 

Great  Western,  steamer,  3;  Great 
Britain,  4,  68. 


Grenville,  Sir  R.,  20. 

Grubb,  optician,  Dublin,  341  (note). 

Guinaud,  optician,  Munich,  337. 

Hall,  S.  C,  and  Bianconi,  239 ;  and 
fish  caught  in  Galway  Bay,  263. 

Hand  printing,  155,162, 188, 190,205, 
206. 

Hanse  Towns  merchants,  6, 10. 

Harbor  Trust,  Belfast,  283, 306, 317. 

Harland,  Dr.,  Scarborough,  284. 

Ilarland  &  Wolff,  Belfast,  277,  281. 

Harland,  E.  J.,  ship-builder,  Belfast, 
works  on  Queen's  Island.  277, 278 ; 
enterprise  of  Harland  A  Wolff, 
281 ;  chairman  of  Harbor  Trust, 
282;  autobiography  of,  284;  edu- 
cation of,  286;  apprenticed  to 
Stephenson  &  Co.,  Newcastle, 
288;  invents  a  model  life-boat, 
289;  a  journeyman, 298;  removes 
to  tbc  Clyde,  294;  becomes  head 
draughtsman,  295;  manager  of 
ship-building  yard  on  the  Tyne, 
296,296;  removes  to  Belfast,  297; 
owner   of  Queen's   Island  works, 

300;  marriage,  .'!*'<•;  partnership 

with  (J.  W.  AVolff,  301;  build 
screw  steamers  fur  Bibby,  Liver- 
pool, 801-307;  lengthening  and 
improvement  of  ships,  801-607; 
build  "White  Star"  liners,  307- 
313;  raising  of  The  I  ('"//'from  deep 
water.  818-815  :  large  sailing  ships 
of  steel  and  iron,  316;  on  Irish 
prosperity,  318. 
Harrison.. John,  a  bom  mechanic,  76; 
birth  and  education,  77 ;  wooden 
clock,  78 ;  carpenter  and  surveyor, 
79 ;  compensation  pendulum,  80 ; 
compensation  clocks,  81 ;  tried  for 
purposes  of  navigation,  81;  com- 
petes for  the  prize  of  £20,000,82; 
invents  tools  and  makes  his  first 
chronometer,  89,  90 ;  successful 
trial,  91 ;  second  and  third  chro- 
nometer, 92, 93;  fourth  time-piece, 
95;  delays  in  granting  reward, 
96 ;  expostulation  with  Board  of 
Longitude,  98;  claims  finally  set- 


Index. 


377 


tied,  102;  death  and  monument, 

103. 
Harry  Grace  de  Dieu,  8. 
Hartwig's  discovery  of  comet,  328. 
Harvard  Observatory,  U.  S.,  337. 
Hawkins,  Cape,,  16, 18,  21. 
Helena,  St.,  taken,  23. 
Henry  VIII.  and  royal  navy,  6-8; 

dock-yards  established  by,  7. 
Henry,  Prince,  32, 37. 
Herschel,  Professor  A.  S.,  329. 
Hickson  &  Co.,  Belfast,  281,  298- 

300. 
Hill,  Sir  Rowland,  and  printing-ma- 
chine, 198  (and  note). 
Hindostan,  timber  required  for,  50. 
Hoe  &  Co.,  printing  machines  of, 

174, 194,  200. 
Holland,  commerce  of,  10;  colonies 

of,  22 ;  and  discovery  of  longitude, 

73 ;  fisheries  of,  262, 268. 
Hooke,  R.,  aud  telescope,  84. 
Howard,  Lord  High  Admiral,  7,  21, 

26,  31, 37. 
Hudson's  Bay,  15. 
Huguenots,  Massacre  of,  12, 16 ;  and 

silk  manufacturers,  109 ;  and  Irish 

industry,  271. 
Hulls,  Jonathan,  and  steamboat,  54. 
Hutchinson,    W.,    of    Stephenson's 

works,  293. 
Hutchinson's    steamers    on    Clyde, 

296. 
Hutton  on  silk  manufacture,  111 ; 

on  activity  of  Birmingham,  272. 

India.     See  East  India  Company. 

Industry,  influence  of,  105;  in  Ire- 
land, 252,  318. 

Invention,  progress  of,  1-4 ;  of  Eng- 
lish shipping,  23 ;  Phineas  Pett 
and,  33-44;  of  iron  ships,  50-52; 
of  steamboats,  53-56;  of  screw, 
56-70;  of  marine  chronometer, 
72-104 ;  of  silk  machine,  108 ;  of 
locomotive,  130 ;  of  gas  for  light- 
ing purposes,  134;  of  steam  print- 
ing-press, 157 ;  of  stereotyping, 
195 ;  of  Walter  press,  200. 

Ireland,  Bianconi  in,  220-251 ;  thrift 


in,  257,  281, 282 ;  fisheries  of,  260- 
267 ;  ship-building  of,  281-318. 

Irish  manufactures,  255,  259,  275, 
276,  281,  282, 30L-318. 

Iron  ship-building,  50 ;  first  used  by 
J.Wilkinson,  51 ;  Sir  W.  Symonds 
on  iron  ships,  68 ;  in  Ireland,  277, 
281,  300-318. 

Ismay,  T.  H.,  Liverpool,  307, 310, 312, 
313,  317. 

Italian  workmen  in  England,  6-8; 
and  silk  industry,  107,  109 ;  cir- 
cular to  Italians  abroad,  217. 

Jackman,  Capt.,  21. 

James  I.  and  royal  navy,  24;  and 
Phineas  Pett,  *32,  35,  37,  38 ;  and 
silken  hose,  109. 

Jaunting  cars,  Ireland,  229-231 ;  Bi- 
anconi and,  220-251. 

Jervons,  Liverpool,  builds  iron  ves- 
sels, 51. 

Jones,  Bradlej-,  on  Welsh  students, 
364,  365. 

Jones,  John,  Bangor,  slate-counter 
and  astronomer,  356;  early  life, 
358 ;  study  of  languages  and  as- 
tronomy, 360 ;  makes  a  reflecting 
telescope,  361 ;  his  poetical  exer- 
cises, 362,  363. 

Kendal,  copy  of  Harrison's  chronom- 
eter, 100-102. 

Knight,  Charles,  207,  211, 212. 

Knowledge,  increase  of,  2. 

Koenig,  Frederick,  birth,  154;  ap- 
prenticed to  a  printer,  154;  ex- 
periments upon  a  printing-press, 
155 ;  takes  his  invention  to  Eng- 
land, 156;  agreement  with  Bens- 
ley,  157, 158;  his  various  patents, 
159-162;  first  books  printed  by 
the  printing  machine,  160-162; 
taken  up  by  Walter  of  the  Times, 
164;  first  newspaper  printed  by 
steam,  166 ;  testimony  of  the  Times 
to  Koenig's  merits,  166-171 ;  his- 
tory of  the  invention,  169,  170; 
Koenig's  patents  a  failure,  171, 
172;  leaves  England,  172;  settles 


37S 


Index. 


at  Oberzell,  176;  his  printing- 
machine  establishment,  176.  177 ; 
death,  178. 

Lagan  river.  Belfast.  273. 

Lancaster,  ('apt..  21,  28. 

Lancaster.  Samuel  Hainbridgc.  his 
early  life,  S48;  memory  ami  edu- 
cation, 844;  learns  photography, 
340;  studies  at  art  school.  847; 
chemistry,  electricity,  algebra, 
mathematics,  848 :  makes  a  re- 
flecting t  :  meditates 
an  achromati.  :  pro- 
1  work,  ?>~>\.  856  (n 

Lardner.  Dr..  and  steam  navigation, 
3. 

Lassell.  Mr.,  equatorial 

842, 
Leading  Article,  invention  of) 

Levelling  up  a  Country, 

Lick    Observatory,  California,   ">n 

( an 
Life-boat,  Barland't  model,  9 
Limerick,  Bianconi'i  can  and,  - 

gl"' 
Linen  industry,  Ireland,  271,  276. 

Lisburn,  Ireland,  271. 

rary   Gazette,  printed   by  B 
ni^'s  printing-press,  171,  l 
Liverpool  shipping  in  1565,  24. 
Lloyd's   Weekly   A"<  printed 

by  Hoe'a  machine,  194. 
Loans,  pernicio 
Lockyer,  Mr.,  on  *  !ook(  s  \\"rk. 

84a 
Locomotive,  me  of.  2;    ICnrda 
model  of,  18L 
i.  85. 
graphic  printing  of  77- <<.--.  181. 
Lombardy    and    silk    manufacture. 

11)7. 

Lombe,  John,  and  silk  industry,  105; 
Lombes  of  Norwich,  11":  silk- 
weaving  at  Derby,  ill:  discov- 
ery of  silk-throwing,  112;   starts 

silk-mill  at  Derby,  1 18;  su] 

poisoning  and  funeral.  11  L 
Lombe,  Sir  Thomas,  his  origin.  110; 
goes  to  London,  111:  assists  his 


half  brother,  112;  constructs  the 
Derby  silk-mill.  118;  vote  of 
£14,000  by  Parliament,  119;  death 
and  issue,  1 18  (note). 

London,  bridge,  4;  corporation  of, 
and  piracy,  28,  29  (note). 

Longitude  at  sea, 78-102. 

Longitude,  Board  of,  74, 82, 90, 93, 90, 
100,  101. 

Longfield  estate,  Tipperary,  '21t'>. 

Lowestoft  fishermen  and  Cork  Ex- 
hibition, 260. 

Lunar  tables,  82,  85. 

Lurgan,  [reland,  -71,  274. 

Lyndhurst,  Lord  (Mr.  Copley),  210. 

Macilwainc  A  Lewis,  Belfast,  282. 

bine     for     silk  -  throwing,     110 

(note),  112. 
Mails.  Bianconi  and  Irish.  287. 

Ilanby,  builds  an  iron  vessel,  ."»i ;  on 

Murd.H-k.l  18. 
Manufactures    in    Ireland,  5 

271 
Manx  fishermen,  261,267. 
Marine  chronometer,  John  Harrison 

and,  78  102. 

Maritime    adventure,    English    and, 

18,  1 1.  I 
Man \n,  T.,  and  printing-press,  104, 

191. 
Mary  Rom  sunk  and  raised, 9, 10. 
Bfaudsli  r,  II.    and  Field 
May.  r.  II.,  on  Bianconi,  251. 
Mechanics,  i"n>,  76. 

:  trade,  800,  804. 
Mh  ant,  circular  to  Italian 

consuls.  "J  17. 

Mercantile  shipping.  ."». ;»,  10,  n. 
25. 

M-  r/.  and  Mahler,  opticians,  337. 

rs,  J.  Robertson  on, 
Mill. . i.  EL,  his"  Logic,"  214 
Miller   ol    Dalswinton,  and  steam- 

I  p<  M  • 

Mills,  at  Galway,  254;  at  Belfast, 
272  28a 

Mineral  wealth  of  Ireland,  2G0. 
Missouri    Republican    and    Walter 
press,  203. 


Index. 


379 


Modernness  of  civilization,  1 ;  of 
England,  4;  of  English  fishery 
and  commerce,  5,  267-270. 

Money,  Bianconi  on  genius  of,  251. 

Morning  Chronicle,  Perry  of,  164. 

Morrissev's  boat,  Carrick  and  Water- 
ford,  223,  231. 

Murdock,  William,  birth,  121 ;  rela- 
tives, 122 ;  Burns's  teacher,  122  ; 
Bellow  mill,  123 ;  mechanical 
horse,  121 ;  general  workman,  124 ; 
interview  with  Bolton,  125;  em- 
ployed at  Soho,  126 ;  life  in  Corn- 
wall, 127;  invents  "sun  and  plan- 
et" motion,  129;  makes  a  model 
locomotive,  131 ;  marriage,  133  ; 
invention  of  gas-lighting,  134; 
other  inventions,  137;  his  sons, 
137;  gold  medal  awarded  by  Royal 
Society,  139;  partnership  with 
Boulton  &  Watt,  142 ;  Nasmyth 
on  Murdock's  "  masterly  touch," 
143 ;  his  co-working  and  corre- 
spondence with  Watt,  144,  145; 
Murdock's  patents,  149;  on  stor- 
age of  power,  150;  adaptation  of 
steam  to  navigation,  151;  death, 
152. 

Napier,  Sir  C,  and  first  iron  steam- 
boat, 52. 

Nasmyth,  J.,  on  Murdock's  inven- 
tions, 142,  143;  on  Cooke's  tele- 
scopes, 331, 338. 

Navigation,  science  of,  72. 

Navigation,  steam.  2, 4,  51, 53, 56-69, 
275,  276,  280,  287-318. 

Navv,  beginning  of  British,  5,  7,  8, 
10,  16,16,19,23,52. 

Netherlands,  commerce  of,  11;  per- 
secutions in,  11, 16. 

Newall,  Mr.,  his  Gateshead  telescope, 
837,840. 

Newfoundland  planted,  21. 

Newton,  Sir  I.,  on  short  date  of  civ- 
ilization, 1 ;  on  discovery  of  longi- 
tude at  sea,  74 ;  his  reflecting 
quadrant,  84. 

New  York  Times  on  Walter  Press, 
203. 


Nicholson,  W.,  patent  for  printing 
machine,  161 ,  174, 191, 198. 

Nobilitv,  trades  compatible  with, 
108,  271,  272. 

Northampton,  Earl  of,  37,  38. 

Northumberland,  Duke  of,  v.  Clowes, 
209 ;  and  prize  life-boat,  290. 

Northwest  passage,  attempts  to  dis- 
cover, 14,  15,  22,'  24. 

Nunn,  Thomas,  disreputable  minis- 
ter, 27. 

Oberzell,  Koenig's  manufactory  at, 
176. 

Oceanic,  the,  309. 

O'Connell  and  repeal,  120;  and  Bian- 
coni, 233, 247;  on  Irish  strikes,  259. 

Ogden,  F.  2?.,  and  screw  steamers,  63. 

Onions  &  Son,  and  iron  vessels,  51. 

Organzine  silk,  109. 

Paddle  boats,  first  used,  53,  55;  su- 
perseded by  screw,  3,  56,  60-70. 

Papin,  Dr.  Dennis,  and  steamboats, 
53. 

Paper-making  machine,  invention  of, 
198 ;  at  Oberzell,  178. 

Parker,  J.,  publisher,  213. 

Parma,  Duchess  of,  and  Flemish  per- 
secutions, 11. 

Parnell,  Mr.,  speech  at  Cork  Exhibi- 
tion, 255. 

Patent  laws,  England,  156, 171. 

Pendulum  compensation,  80,  88. 

Penny  Magazine,  211,  212;  Cyclopae- 
dia, 212. 

Perrie,  W.  J.,  Belfast,  308. 

Perry,  Mr.,  Morning  Chronicle,  164. 

Persecutions,  foreign  religious,  11, 12, 
16,  271. 

Pett,  Capt.,  21,  26. 

Pett,  Sir  Peter,  45,  48. 

Pett,  Phineas,  his  ancestry,  26;  edu- 
cation, 26,  27;  bred  a  ship-build- 
er, 27 ;  goes  to  sea,  28 ;  journej'- 
man  at  Deptford,  30 ;  self-improve- 
ment, 30;  promotion,  31 ;  builds  a 
miniature  vessel  for  Prince  Henry, 
32 ;  builds  the  Resistance,  and  goes 
to  sea,  33  ;  master  ship-builder  at 


3S0 


Index. 


Chatham,  33 ;  designs  the  Prince 
Royal,  34 ;  malicious  proceedings 
against,  35;  construction  of  the 
Prince  Royal,  30,  41 ;  builds  ships 
for  Sir  W.  Raleigh,  41 ;  pinnaces 
to  chastise-  pirates,  43;  voyage  to 
Spain,  44;  builds  The  Sovereign 
of  the  Seas,  45;  death  of,  47. 

Philip  II.  of  Spain.  11,  1G.  ' 

Phillips.  Professor,  York,  332, 335. 

Piedmont,  silk  manufacture  in,  112. 

Piracy,  early.  5,  9,  26,  28,  31,  32,  13. 

Planting  of  new  colonies,  21,  21. 

Poets    and    writers    in   Elizabeth's 
reign,  13. 

Popenruyter,    the     Flemish      gun- 
founder.  7. 

Population  in  England,  Elizabeth's 
reign,  l";  in  Scotland,  120, 

Portsmouth  dockyard,  7. 

Post-office,  in  Ireland, 236;  Bianconi 
and  mails  287,  240, 
in,  sir  Amies,  21. 

Priestly,  l'r..  and   Board   of  Longi- 
tude, 101, 

.  the,  built  by  Pett,26;  Prime* 
Royal,  34   11. 

Printing,  by  hand,  163,  155,  162,163, 
191,  198,  205. 

Printing  machine,  invention  of,  158; 
Koenig'fl  iir>t  attempts,  155; 
men!  \sith  Bensley,  157,158;  man- 
ufactured by  K"*  mig  A  Bauer, 
:i's  patent,  161, 
171.  \'M  :  improvements  by  Cow- 
I  ex  a-  Applegarth,  192;  the  Wal- 
ter  Press,  200  204, 

Pritchard,  Professor,  Oxf  - 

Privateering  at  sea.  5.  24, 

Propelling  ships.  !ir.>t  attempt 

Prymc's  "Autobiographic  Recollec- 
tion-," 18G. 

Queen  Elizabeth  and  English  navv, 

10-21. 
Queen's  Island,  Belfast,  276,  278,  281, 
30G. 

Railway,  invention  of,  2;  in  Ireland, 
and  Bianconi,  242,  21 1. 


Raleigh,  Sir  W.,  21;  and  piracy,  28; 
and  Phineas  Pett,  41. 

Raider,  the  screw  ship,  GO. 

Ravens,  the  three,  35. 

Repeal  of  Union,  120.  226. 

Ressel,  J.,  supposed  inventor  of  screw, 
57. 

Rewards  offered  for  discovery  of  lon- 
gitude at  sea,  73-75, 82. 

Rice,  Ed.,  Bianconi  ami.  221,  250. 

Riches  of  Ireland,  257. 

Ritchie,  W.,  Belfast,  275. 

Roads,  in  Britain,  4;  in  Ireland.  227, 
242. 

Robertson,  John,  Coupar  Angus,  321- 

Robinson,  H.Crahh,  and  Timet,  186. 

Roebuck,  Drnand  steam-engine,  121. 

Rolls  of  paper  used  for  machine- 
printing,  200. 

Ropework  Company,  Belfast.  283. 

Royal Georffi  raiaedai  Portsmouth,  10. 

Royal  navy,  beginnings  of,  6-8,  I". 
if..  19,28, 

Royal  Society  and  Harrison.  88,  90, 
98,  '.'1;  and  Murdock,  13i>,  142, 
(no 

Sailing  shi  advantages  of, 

compared  with  steam,  317. 
Sail«.rs  in  Elizabeth's  reign,  18,19-21. 

Saint  Bartholomew,  massacre  of,  12, 
16. 

Salmon  in  Inland.  254. 

Sardinia,  king  of.  and  Harrison,  98; 
and  .-ilk  industry,  1 10,  11  1. 

Saturday  Magazi  •.  Parker  pub- 
lisher of,  214. 

Sanderson,  Professor,  lectures,  79. 

St  iv,  in  a. ill,  steamer. .">. 

Savings  banks  in  Ireland,  257;   in 

Belfast,  282. 
Scarborough,  Dr.  Ilarland  and,  284. 
Scenery,  Iri-h.  252. 
Schwabe,6.d,800. 

ice,  progress  of  physical,  2. 
Scotland,  poverty  of,  119;   progress 

of,  120,  121  :  and  mechanics,  12G  ; 

fishermen  of,  261, 2G2,  265. 
Scott,  Sir  "VY.,  and  gas-lighting,  139. 


Index. 


381 


Screw  propeller,  inventors  of,  56-71 ; 
supersedes  paddles,  4, 56. 

Sculpture -making  machine,  Watt 
and,  144. 

Seamen,  great,  of  England,  13, 19, 21. 

Security  of  capital,  necessity  of,  258. 

Sextant,  the,  and  navigation,  83. 

Ships,  early  English,  9, 14, 17,  22,23. 

Ship -building,  beginning  of,  1,  6; 
foreigners  and,  7 ;  English,  9 ;  in 
Elizabeth's  time,  11,22;  on  the 
Thames,  9,  23;  of  Liverpool,  24; 
Petts  of  the  Thames,  26;  Phineas 
Pett  and,  34 ;  the  Prince  Royal, 
39 ;  Sovereign  of  the  Seas,  45 ; 
Constant  Warwick,  48;  in  iron, 
50,  63. 

Shipping  of  England,  4,  6, 11, 52 ;  of 
Spain,  11 ;  of  Holland,  11,  268. 

Ship  propeller  company,  66,  69. 

Silk  manufacture,  106;  industry,  108, 
118;  throwing  machine,  110,  112, 
116  (note). 

Sirius,  the  first  American  steamer,  3. 

Smith,  Francis  Pettit,  birth,  59  ;  ed- 
ucation and  amusements,  59,  60; 
invents  a  screw  propeller,  60;  a 
model  made,  60 ;  the  trial  success- 
ful, 61,  62;  the  Archimedes  con- 
structed, 66 ;  the  Great  Britain, 
68;  the  Battler,  68;  the  screw 
propeller  adopted,  69  ;  Smith's  re- 
ward, 70. 

"  Society  for  Diffusion  of  Useful 
Knowledge,"  207,  211. 

Soho,  Murdock  at,  124, 136,  142, 148, 
149. 

Sovereign  of  the  Seas,  45-47. 

Spain,  iron  from,  10  ;  naval  and  com- 
mercial power  of,  11;  armada  of, 
18-20;  reward  (for  longitude)  of- 
fered, 73 ;  and  Irish  fisheries,  262. 

Spencer's  patent,  294,  303. 

Spitzbergen,  adventurers  to,  11. 

Spots  on  the  sun,  326. 

Stanhope,  Earl,  stereotyping,  155, 
196 ;  his  printing-press,  163,  176, 
190,  206. 

State  papers  and  foreign  mechanics,  6. 

Steamboat,  invention  of,  2,  53. 


Steam-carriage,  Dr.  Harland's,  285. 
Steam-engine,  discovery  of,  2, 4 ;  and 

Dr.  Eoebuck,  121 ;  uses  of,  128. 
Steam  navigation,  2,  3,  4,  53,  56,  68, 

151, 307-312. 
Steel  used  in  ship-building,  50, 317. 
Stephenson,  Robert,  on  merits  of  F. 

P.  Smith,  70,  71 ;  and  E.  J.  Har, 

land,  286 ;  works,  Newcastle,  288, 

292. 
Stereotyping,  invention  of,  195;   of 

newspapers,  195, 196. 
Stockton  in  time  of  Charles  I.,  46. 
Stockton,  E.  F.,  61. 
Storage  of  power,  Murdock  on,  150. 
Strafford,  Lord,  in  Ireland,  271. 
Strikes — of  Times'  pressmen,  188 ;  in 

Ireland,  259;  in  ship-building  yard, 

Belfast,  298. 
Struve,  Russian  astronomer,  337. 
Sun,  spots  on,  326. 
"  Sun  and  planet"  motion,  129. 
Swan.  J.,  alleged  inventor  of  screw, 

58.' 
Sunday  traffic,  Bianconi  on,  241. 
Sweden  and  Irish  fisheries,  262. 
Switzerland  and  industry,  259,  260. 
Symington  and  steam  navigation,  3, 

*  53,  55. 
Symonds,  Sir  W.,  on  Pett's  ships,  46, 

48 ;  on  screw  steamers,  64,  67 ;  on 

iron  ships,  68. 

Taylor,  printer,  London,  157,  164 
(note),  170-173. 

Teape,  job-printer,  207. 

Telescopes,  J.  Robertson's,  325 ;  T. 
Cooke's,  331-342 ;  S.  Lancaster's, 
350;  J.  Jones's,  360,  361. 

Thames,  ship-building  on  the,  9, 24 ; 
steamers  on  the,  56. 

Theatrical  puffs,  Times  on,  184. 

Thermometer  kirb,  Harrison's,  87. 

Thomsons,  marine  engineers,  Glas- 
gow, 294-296,  300. 

Thrift  in  Ireland,  257,  276,  277. 

Thrown  silk,  109. 

Timber  and  ship-building,  50. 

Tilloch  &  Foulis,  printers,  196. 

Times,  the,  first  printed  by  steam, 


382 


Index. 


165-170;  founding  of,  181;  man- 
ment   of,   181-194;    improved 
stereotyping  of,  196, 107:  Walter 
Tress  of,  198-204. 
Tipperarv,  car-travelling  in,  282. 

lo,  'Bianconi  and,  218-220. 
Toward'a  shipbuilding  yard,  Tyne, 

Town  and  country,  843. 
Travelling  in  Inland.  227, ! 
Trawling  in  Galway  Bay,  268,264. 

thick,  inventor  i  f 
Tndon  and  modern  England,  5. 
Tycho  Brahc  and  astronomical  in- 

Btrnmenl 
Type-  ,214. 

I      :'id  Knott 

.  211, 

Vei  irorkmen, 

10;  Bilk  manufacture,  I 
Victoria  <  !hann<  l.  i 

Virginia  planted,  21. 

I 

Wales,    « 

:  North  v.  B71. 

U  r.  John  I. '.  prints  r  an  I 
liaber,  180;  founds  the  - 
181; 

l>»  lii-^  BOn,  1  v  "\ ■<  rn- 

ment    print ii 

the  new  management,  184. 
Walter.  John  ( II. ),  into  w  ith 

takes  up  K 
invention,    166;    print  - 

wuincements  in  tl 

17n  : 

\rticle, 

foreign  <'"rr>  - 
187 :  the  preasoM  d  on  strik 

adO|  ta  1  i    print ing- 

press,  192  ;  em  rgy  and  char 
198. 

Walter,  John   (III.),  continues  im- 
provements in  printing-press.  \1>i. 


196,  108;  promotes  stcreotvping, 
196, 107  ;  the  Walter  Press,"  108. 
'alter   Press,   description    of,  200- 
204. 
ard,    M.,   and    Co.,    Belfast,    277. 

atches  in  Newton's  time,  74. 
aterford,  liianeoni    and.  221,  228, 
280  282. 

aterford   election,  Bianconi   and, 
282. 

att,  James,  discovery  of  eoodens- 
steam-engine,  2;    steam-en- 
gine and  steamboat,  64 ;  and  the 
57 :   and  Bonlton,  121 ; 
and  Murdoch,  127,  181,  182,  1 L8- 

ay-bill 

eallans,  w.,  Stephenson's  works, 

itch  printed  by  Koenig's 
machine,  171. 
elah  siud.  in-,  864 
biteboys  and  Bianconi,  286,  241. 
icksto  '  d.  Rev,  c..  856. 

ilkin^oii,.!.,  first  uses  iron  in  ship- 
building, 51 . 

Hugh,  1 1. 
I.'..  Bup|  osi  I    ini  <  otor    of 

• 
insor  and  gas-lighi 
olff,  G.  W.,  800 ;  partner  with  Bar- 
land,  281,  801 :  chairman  1 1"  Bel- 

oUaston  and  gas-lighting,  189. 

'  printing-machine, 

ooden  walls, 

ooi.  Btaple  of  England,  5, 

oolwich  dockyard,  7. 

orkman  A-  Clarke,  Bt  ifaet,  2*2. 
r.  n.  >ir  ('..  and  longitude.  75. 


ridge  grammar-school,  313. 
York  Street  Spinning-mills,  Belfast, 
277. 

Zoppola,  Count,  in  Ireland,  252. 


VALUABLE  AND  INTERESTING  WORKS 

FOR 

PUBLIC  AND   PRIVATE   LIBRARIES, 

Published  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  New  York. 


C2T"  For  a  full  List  of  Books  suitable  for  Libraries  published  by  Harper  & 
Buotukbs,  see  Haupkk's  Catalogue,  which  may  be  had  gratuitously  on 
application  to  the  publishers  personally,  or  by  letter  enclosing  Ten  Cents 
in  postage  stamps. 

tST"  Haepkr  &  Bkotiiers  will  send  their  publications  by  mail,  postage  pre- 
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MACAULAYS  ENGLAND.  The  History  of  England  from  the 
Accession  of  James  II.  By  Thomas  Babington  Macatjlay. 
New  Edition,  from  New  Electrotype  Plates.  5  vols.,  in  a  Box, 
8vo,  Cloth,  with  Paper  Labels,  Uncut  Edges,  and  Gilt  Tops, 
$10  00;  Sheep,  $12  50;  Half  Calf,  $21  25.  Sold  only  in  Sets. 
Cheap  Edition,  5  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

MACAULAYS  MISCELLANEOUS  WORKS.  The  Miscellane- 
ous Works  of  Lord  Macaulay.  From  New  Electrotype  Plates. 
5  vols.,  in  a  Box,  Svo,  Cloth,  with  Paper  Labels,  Uncut  Edges, 
and  Gilt  Tops,  $10  00;  Sheep,  $12  50;  Half  Calf,  $21  25.  Sold 
only  in  Sets. 

HUME'S  ENGLAND.  History  of  England,  from  the  Invasion  of 
Julius  Ca?sar  to  the  Abdication  of  James  II.,  1G88.  By  David 
1 1  i. mi:.  New  and  Elegant  Library  Edition,  from  New  Electrotype 
Plates.  (J  vols.,  in  a  Box,  Svo,  Cloth,  with  Paper  Labels,  Uncut 
Edges,  and  Gilt  Tops,  $12  00;  Sheep,  $15  00;  Half  Calf,  $25  50. 
Sold  only  in  Sets.  Popular  Edition,  6  vols.,  in  a  Box,  12mo,  Cloth, 
00.  " 

GIBBON'S  POME.  The  History  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  By  Edward  Gibbon.  With  Notes  by  Dean 
Milmav,  M.  GuiZOT,  and  Dr.  Willi  a*  Smith.  New  Edition, 
from  New  Electrotype  Plates.  6  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  with  Paper 
Labels,  Uncut  Edges,  and  Gilt  Tops,  $12  00;  Sheep,  $15  00; 
Half  Calf,  $25  50.  Sold  only  in  Sets.  Popular  Edition,  6  vols., 
in  a  Box,  12mo,  Cloth,  $3  00. 


2  Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries. 

HILDRETH'S  UNITKl)  STATES.  History  of  the  United  States. 
Pirst  SERIES:  From  the  Discovery  of  the  Continent  to  the  Or- 
ganization of  the  Government  under  the  Federal  Constitution. 
SeoobD  Series:  From  the  Adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution 
to  the  End  of  the  Sixteenth  Congress.  By  Richard  HlLDRRTH. 
Popular  Edition,  (I  vols.,  in  a  Box,  8TO,  Cloth,  with  Paper  Labels, 
Uncut  Edges,  and  Gilt  Tops,  $11'  00;  Sheep,  $16  00;  Half  Calf, 
$25  50.     Sold  only  in  Sets. 

MOTLEY'S  DUTCH  REPUBLIC  The  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Re- 
public.   A  History.    ByJoHE  Lothrop  Motley,  J. ED.,  D.C.L. 

With  a  Portrait  of  William  of  Orange.     Cheap  Edition,  :">  vols., 
in  n  Iiox,    8YO,  Cloth,  with  Paper  Labels,  Incut  Edges,  and  (iilt 
Tops,  $6  00;  Sheep,  $7  60;   Half  Calf.  $12  7."..    Bold  only  in 
-.     Original  Library  Edition.  :'.  role.,  BtO,  Cloth,  £l<>  50. 

MOTLEY'S  UNITED  NETHERLANDS.  History  of  the  United 
Netherlands:  From  the  Death  of  William  the  Silent  to  the  Twelve 
Years'  Truce— 1684-1609.  With  a  full  View  of  the  English- 
Dutch  Straggle  against  Spain,  ami  of  the  Origin  and  Destruction 
of  the  Spanish  Armada,  By  Johm  Lothrof  Motlbt,  LL.D., 
D.c.l.  Portraits  (  heap  Edition,  -1  vols.,  in  a  Box,  Bro,  Cloth, 
with  Paper  Labels,  I  .  and  Gill  T<  >;  sheep, 

00;  Half  Calf;  |17  00,    Sold  only  in  -  iginal  Library 

E  lition,  t  rols.,  Bn  ;  I 

MOTLEYS  JOHN  OF  BARNEVELD.     The  Lift  and  Death  of 

.John  of  I  Id,  Adn  Holland.     With  a  View  of  the 

Primary  end  Mo  of  the  "Hurt?  War.*1 

By  Job*  LothrotMotlbt,  LTD..  D.C.L.     Illustrated,    (heap 
Edition,  2  rols.,  ins  I  ■.  Cloth,  with  Paper  Labels,  Uncut 

Tops,  Si  <•<':  Sheep,  >■">  00;  Half  Calf,  $1 

Sold  only  in  Sets.      <>ii„'inal   Lihrary  Edition,  2  vols.,    BVO,  Cloth, 

JOHN   DE  WITT.     History  of  the  Administration 

of  John   De   Witt,   Grand   Pensionary  of   Holland.      By  JAXRSJ 
Grddrs.      Vol.  I.  —  UI2&-1654.     With  a  Portrait.     8vo,  Cloth, 
50. 

HUDSON'S  HISTORY  OF  JOURNALISM.  Journalism  in  the 
United  States,  from  1690  to  1S72.  By  FrRDRRIO  Hudson.  8vo, 
Cloth,  $5  00;   Half  Calf,  $7  25. 


Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries.  3 

GOLDSMITH'S  WORKS.  The  Works  of  Oliver  Goldsmith. 
Edited  by  Peter  Cunningham,  F.S.A.  From  New  Electro- 
type Plates.  4  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  Paper  Labels,  Uncut  Edges, 
and  Gilt  Tops,  $8  00;  Sheep,  $10  00;  Half  Calf,  $17  00.  Uni- 
form with  the  New  Library  Editions  of  Macaulay,  Hume,  Gib- 
bon, Motley,  and  Hildreth. 

MULLER'S  POLITICAL  HISTORY  OF  RECENT  TIMES 
(1S1G-1875).  With  Special  Reference  to  Germany.  By  Will- 
iam Muller.  Translated,  with  an  Appendix  covering  the  Pe- 
riod from  ]876  to  1881,  by  the  Rev.  John  P.  Peters,  Ph.D. 
12mo,  Cloth,  $3  CO. 

SYMOXDS'S  SKETCHES  AND  STUDIES  IN  SOUTHERN 
EUROPE.  By  John  Addington  Symonds.  2  vols.,  Post  Svo, 
Cloth.  $4  00.  " 

SYMONDS'S  GREEK  POETS.  Studies  of  the  Greek  Poets.  By 
John  Addington  Symonds.  2  vols.,  Square  16mo,  Cloth, 
$0  50. 

TREVELYAN'S  LIFE  OF  MACAULAY.  The  Life  and  Letters 
of  Lord  Macaulay.  By  his  Nephew,  G.  Otto  Trevelyan,  M.P. 
With  Portrait  on  Steel.  2  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  Uncut  Edges  and 
Gilt  Tops,  $5  00;  Sheep,  $G  00;  Half  Calf,  $9  50.  Popular 
Edition,  2  vols,  in  one,  12mo,  Cloth,  $1  75. 

TKEVEL  VAN'S  LIFE  OF  FOX.  The  Early  History  of  Charles 
James  Fox.  By  George  Otto  Trevelyan.  Svo,  Cloth,  Un- 
cut Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  $2  50. 

PARTON'S  CARICATURE.  Caricature  and  Other  Comic  Art, 
in  All  Times  and  Many  Lands.  By  James  Parton.  203  Illus- 
trations. 8vo,  Cloth,  Uncut  Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  $5  00;  Half 
Calf,  $7  25. 

MAHAFFY'S  GREEK  LITERATURE.  A  History  of  Classical 
Greek  Literature.  By  J.  P.  Mahaffy.  2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth, 
$1  00. 

SIMCOX'S  LATIN  LITERATURE.  A  History  of  Latin  Lit- 
erature, from  Ennius  to  Boethius.  By  George  Augustus  Sim- 
cox,  M.A.     2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth.  $4  00. 


4  Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries. 

LOSSING'S  CYCLOPAEDIA  OF  UNITED  STATES  HISTORY. 
From  the  Aboriginal  Period  to  1876.  By  B.  J.  Lossing,  LL.D. 
Illustrated  by  2  Steel  Portraits  and  over  1000  Engravings.  2  vols., 
Royal  8vo,  Cloth,  $10  00.     (Sold  by  Subscription  only.) 

LOSSING'S  FIELD-BOOK  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.  Pictorial 
Field-Book  of  the  Revolution  ;  or,  Illustrations  by  Pen  and  Pencil 
of  the  History,  Biography,  Scenery,  Relics,  and  Traditions  of  the 
War  for  Independence.  By  Benson  J.  Lossing.  2  vols.,  8vo, 
Cloth,  $14  00;   Sheep  or  Roan,  $15  00;   Half  Calf,  $18  00. 

LOSSING'S  FIELD-BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  OF  1812.  Pictorial 
Field-Book  of  the  War  of  1S12;  or,  Illustrations  by  Pen  and 
Pencil  of  the  History,  Biography,  Scenery,  Relics,  and  Traditions 
of  the  last  War  fur  American  Independence.  By  Benson  J. 
Lossing.  With  several  hundred  Engravings.  1088  pages,  Bvo, 
Cloth,  $7  00;  Sheep,  j   Half  Calf,  $10  00. 

DU  CHAILHTS  LAND  OF  THE  MIDNIGHT  SUN.    Summer 

and  Winter  Journeys  in  Sweden,  Norway,  and  Lapland,  and  North- 
ern Finland.  By  FaUI  B.  Du  CraILLU.  Illustrated.  2  vols., 
8vo,  Cloth,  %1  60;   Half  Calf. 

DU  CHAILLITS  EQUATORIAL  AFRICA.     Explorations  and 

Adventures  in  Equatorial  Afri  iaj  with  Accounts  of  the  Manners 
and  Customs  of  the  1  nd  of  the  Chase  of  the  ( iot  ilia. 

pard,  Elephant,  Hippopotamus,  and  other  Animals.  By  P.  B. 
DuChaillu.    Illustrated.  i  00;  Half  Calf,  $7  25. 

DU   CHAILLITS  ASHANGO    I. AND.    A  Journey  to  Ashango 

Land,  and  Further  Penetration  into  Equatorial  Africa.  By  P.  r>. 
DuChaillu.    Illustrated.    8ro,  Cloth,  ;  Half  Calf;  $7  25. 

DEXTEUS  CONGREGATIONALISM.    The  Congregationalism 

of  the  Last  Three  Hundred  Y  Seen  in  its  Literature:  with 

Special  Reference  to  certain  Recondite,  Neglected,  or  Disputed 
Passages.  With  a  Bibliographical  Appendix.  By  11.  M.  Dextbb. 
Large  Svo,  Cloth,  |6  00. 

STANLEY'S  THROUGH  THE  DARK  CONTINENT.    Through 

the  Dark  Continent;  or,  The  Sources  of  the  Nile,  Around  the 
Great  Lakes  of  Equatorial  Africa,  and  Down  the  Livingstone 
River  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  149  Illustrations  and  10  Maps.  By 
H.  If.  Stanley.  2  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $10  00;  Half  Morocco, 
$15  00. 


Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries.  5 

BARTLETT'S  FROM  EGYPT  TO  PALESTINE.  Through 
Sinai,  the  Wilderness,  and  the  South  Country.  Observations  of 
a  Journey  made  with  Special  Reference  to  the  History  of  the  Is- 
raelites. By  S.  C.  Bartlett,  D.D.  Maps  and  Illustrations. 
Svo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

FORSTER'S  LIFE  OF  DEAN  SWIFT.  The  Early  Life  of 
Jonathan  Swift  (1667-1711).  By  John  Forster.  With  Por- 
trait.    Svo,  Cloth,  Uncut  Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  $2  50. 

GREEN'S  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.  History  of  the  English  People. 
By  John  Richard  Green,  M.A.  With  Maps.  4  vols.,  8vo, 
Cloth,  $10  00;  Sheep,  $12  00;  Half  Calf,  $19  00. 

GREEN'S  MAKING  OF  ENGLAND.  The  Making  of  England. 
By  J.  R,  Green.     With  Maps.     Svo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

GREEN'S  CONQUEST  OF  ENGLAND.  The  Conquest  of  Eng- 
land.    By  J.  R,  Green.     With  Maps.     8vo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

SHORT'S    NORTH    AMERICANS    OF   ANTIQUITY.      The 

North  Americans  of  Antiquity.  Their  Origin,  Migrations,  and 
Type  of  Civilization  Considered.  By  John  T.  Short.  Illus- 
trated.    Svo,  Cloth,  $3  00. 

SQUIER'S  PERU.  Peru:  Incidents  of  Travel  and  Exploration 
in  the  Land  of  the  Incas.  By  E.  George  Squier,  M.  A.,  F.S.A., 
late  U.  S.  Commissioner  to  Peru.  With  Illustrations.  8vo, 
Cloth,  $5  00. 

BENJAMIN'S  ART  IN  EUROPE.  Contemporary  Art  in  Europe. 
By  S.  G.  W.  Benjamin.  Illustrated.  8vo,  Cloth,  $3  50;  Half 
Calf,  $5  75. 

BENJAMIN'S  ART  IN  AMERICA.  Art  in  America.  By  S. 
G.  W.  Benjamin.  Illustrated.  Svo,  Cloth,  $1  00 ;  Half  Calf, 
$6  25. 

REBER'S  HISTORY  OF  ANCIENT  ART.  History  of  Ancient 
Art.  By  Dr.  Franz  von  Reber.  Revised  by  the  Author. 
Translated  and  Augmented  by  Joseph  Thacher  Clarke.  With 
310  Illustrations  and  a  Glossary  of  Technical  Terms.  Svo,  Cloth, 
$3  50. 

GROTE'S   HISTORY   OF   GREECE.      12  vols.,    12mo,    Cloth, 

$18  00;  Sheep,  $22  80;  Half  Calf,  $39  CO. 


6  Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries. 

ADAMS'S  MANUAL  OF  HISTORICAL  LITERATURE.  A 
Manual  of  Historical  Literature.  Comprising  Brief  Descriptions 
of  the  Most  Important  Histories  in  English,  French,  and  Ger- 
man.    By  Professor  C.  K.  Adams.     8vo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

KINGLAKE'S  CRIMEAN  AVAR.  The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea : 
its  Origin,  and  an  Account  of  its  Progress  down  to  the  Death 
of  Lord  Raglan.     By  Alexander  William  Kinglake.     With 

Maps  and  Plans.    Four  Volumes  now  ready.    12mo,  Cloth,  $2  00 
per  vol. 

MAURY'S  PHYSICAL  GEOGRAPHY  OF  THE  SEA.  The 
Physical  Geography  of  the  Sen,  and  its  Meteorology.  By  M.  F. 
Maury,  LL.D.     8vo,  Cloth,  $i  00. 

HALLAM'S  LITERATURE.  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of 
Europe  during  the  Fifteenth,  Sixteenth,  and  Seventeenth  Cent- 
uries. By  Henry  Hall  am.  2  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $i  00;  Sheep, 
$5  00. 

HALLAM'S  MIDDLE  AGES.  View  of  the  State  of  Europe  dur- 
ing the  Middle  Ages.  By  II.  Hallam.  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  00; 
Sheep,  $2  50. 

HALLAM'S  CONSTITUTIONAL  HISTORY   OF  ENGLAND. 

The  Constitutional  History  of  England,  from  the  Accession  of 
Henry  VII.  to  the  Death  of  George  II.     By  Henry  Hallam. 

8vo,  Cloth,  $2  00;  Sheep,  $2  50. 

NEWCOMB'S  ASTRONOMY.  Popular  Astronomy.  By  Simon 
Newcomb,  LL.D.  With  112  Engravings,  and  5  Maps  of  the 
Stars.     8vo,  Cloth,  $2  50;  School  Edition,  12mo,  Cloth,  $1  30. 

VAN-LENNEP'S  BIBLE  LANDS.  Bible  Lands :  their  Modern 
Custom  and  Manners  Illustrative  of  Scripture.  By  Henry  J. 
Van-Lennep,  D.D.  350  Engravings  and  2  Colored  Maps.  8vo, 
Cloth,  $5  00 ;  Sheep,  $6  00 ;  Half  Morocco,  $8  00. 

PRIME'S  POTTERY  AND  PORCELAIN.  Pottery  and  Porce- 
lain of  All  Times  and  Nations.  With  Tables  of  Factory  and 
Artists'  Marks,  for  the  Use  of  Collectors.  By  William  C. 
Prime,  LL.D.  Illustrated.  8vo,  Cloth,  Uncut  Edges  and  Gilt 
Tops,  $7  00;  Half  Calf,  $0  25.     (In  a  Box.) 


Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries.  7 

ENGLISH  MEN  OF  LETTERS.  Edited  by  John  Morley. 
The  following  volumes  are  now  readjr.     Others  will  follow  : 

Johnson.  By  L.  Stephen. — Gibbon.  By  J.  C.  Morison. — 
Scott.  By  R.  H.  Hutton. — Shelley.  By  J.  A.  Symonds. — 
Goldsmith.  By  W.  Black. — Hume.  By  Professor  Huxley. — 
Defoe.  By  W.  Minto. — Burns.  By  Principal  Shairp. — Spen- 
ser. By  R.  W.  Church. — Thackeray.  By  A.  Trollope. — 
Burke.  By  J.  Morley. — Milton.  By  M.  Pattison. — Southey. 
By  E.  Dowden. — Chaucer.  By  A.  W.  Ward. — Bonyan.  By 
J.  A.  Eroude.— Cowper.  By  G.  Smith.— Pope.  By  L.  Ste- 
phen.—  Byron.  By  J.  Nichols. — Locke.  By  T.  Fowler. — 
Wordsworth.  By  F.  W.  II.  Myers.  —  Hawthorne.  By 
Henry  James,  Jr. — Dryden.  By  G.  Saintsbury. — Landor.  By 
S.  Colvin. — De  Quincey.  By  D.  Masson. — Lamb.  By  A. 
Ainger. — Bentley.  By  R.  C.  Jebb. — Dickens.  By  A.  W. 
Ward. — Gray.  By  E.  W.  Gosse. — Swift.  By  L.  Stephen. — 
Sterne.  By  H.  D.  Traill.— Macaulay.  By  J.  C.  Morison.— 
Fielding.  By  Austin  Dobson. — Sheridan.  By  Mrs.  Oliphant. 
— Addison.  By  W.  J.  Courthope. — Bacon.  By  R.  W.  Church. 
— Coleridge.     By  II.  D.  Traill.     12mo,  Cloth,  75  cts.  per  vol. 

CESNOLA'S  CYPRUS.  Cyprus  :  its  Ancient  Cities,  Tombs,  and 
Temples.  A  Narrative  of  Researches  and  Excavations  during 
Ten  Years'  Residence  in  that  Island.  By  L.  P.  di  Cesnola. 
With  Portrait,  Maps,  and  400  Illustrations.  8vo,  Cloth,  Extra, 
Uncut  Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  $7  50. 

TENNYSON'S  COMPLETE  POEMS.  The  Complete  Poetical 
Works  of  Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson.  With  an  Introductory  Sketch 
by  Anne  Thackeray  Ritchie.  With  Portraits  and  Illustrations. 
8vo,  Extra  Cloth,  Bevelled,.  $2  00  ;  Gilt  Edges,  $2  50. 

STRICKLAND'S  (Miss)  QUEENS  OF  SCOTLAND.  Lives  of 
the  Queens  of  Scotland  and  English  Princesses  connected  with 
the  Regal  Succession  of  Great  Britain.  By  Agnes  Strickland. 
8  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $12  00 ;  Half  Calf,  $26  00. 

BLAIKIE'S  LIFE  OF  DAVID  LIVINGSTONE.  Memoir  of 
his  Personal  Life,  from  his  Unpublished  Journals  and  Correspon- 
dence. By  W.  G.  Blaikie,  D.D.  With  Portrait  and  Map. 
8vo,  Cloth,  $2  25. 


8  Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries. 

FLAMMARION'S  ATMOSPHERE.  Translated  from  the  French 
of  Camille  Flammarion.  With  10  Chrorno -Lithographs  and 
86  Woodcuts.     8vo,  Cloth,  $6  00  ;  Half  Calf,  $8  25. 

BAKER'S  ISMAILIA :  a  Narrative  of  the  Expedition  to  Central 
Africa  for  the  Suppression  of  the  Slave-trade,  organized  by  Ismail, 
Khedive  of  Egypt.  By  Sir  Samuel  W.  Baker.  With  Maps, 
Portraits,  and  Illustrations.    8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00  ;  Half  Calf,  $7  25. 

LIVINGSTONE'S  SOUTH  AFRICA.  Missionary  Travels  and 
Researches  in  South  Africa :  including  a  Sketch  of  Sixteen 
Years'  Residence  in  the  Interior  of  Africa,  and  a  Journey  from 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  Loanda,  on  the  West  Coast ;  thence 
across  the  Continent,  down  the  River  Zambesi,  to  the  Eastern 
Ocean.  By  David  Livingstone.  With  Portrait,  Maps,  and  Il- 
lustrations.    8vo,  Cloth,  $4  50. 

LIVINGSTONES  ZAMBESI.  Narrative  of  an  Expedition  to 
the  Zambesi  and  its  Tributaries,  and  of  the  Discovery  of  the 
Lakes  Shirwa  and  Nyassa,  1858  to  1804.  By  David  and 
Charles  Livingstone.     Illustrated.     8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

LIVINGSTONE'S  LAST  JOURNALS.  The  Last  Journals  of 
David  Livingstone,  in  Central  Africa,  from  18G5  to  his  Death. 
Continued  by  a  Narrative  of  his  Last  Moments,  obtained  from 
his  Faithful  Servants  Chuma  and  Susi.  By  Horace  Waller. 
With  Portrait,  Maps,  and  Illustrations.  8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00 ; 
Sheep,  $6  00.  Cheap  Popular  Edition,  8vo,  Cloth,  with  Map 
and  Illustrations.  $2  50. 

SHAKSPEARE.  The  Dramatic  Works  of  Shakspeare.  With 
Notes.  Engravings.  G  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $9  00.  2  vols., 
8vo,  Cloth,  §4  00;  Sheep,  $5  00.  In  one  vol.,  8vo,  Sheep, 
$4  00. 

GENERAL  BEAUREGARD'S  MILITARY  OPERATIONS. 
The  Military  Operations  of  General  Beauregard  in  the  War  be- 
tween the  States,  1861  to  18G5;  including  a  brief  Personal 
Sketch,  and  a  Narrative  of  his  Services  in  the  War  with  Mexico, 
1846  to  1848.  By  Alfred  Roman,  formerly  Aide-de-Camp  on 
the  Staff  of  General  Beauregard.  With  Portraits,  &c.  2  vols., 
8vo,  Cloth,  $7  00;  Sheep,  $9  00;  Half  Morocco,  $11  00;  Full 
Morocco,  $15  00.     (Sold  only  by  Subscriptiop.) 


Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries.  9 

CURTIS'S  LIFE  OF  BUCHANAN.  Life  of  James  Buchanan, 
Fifteenth  President  of  the  United  States.  By  George  Ticknor 
Curtis.  With  Two  Steel  Plate  Portraits.  2  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth, 
Uncut  Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  $6  00. 

GIESELER'S  ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY.  A  Text- Book 
of  Church  History.  By  Dr.  John  C.  L.  Gieseler.  Translated 
from  the  Fourth  Revised  German  Edition.  Revised  and  Edited 
by  Rev.  Henry  B.  Smith,  D.D.     Vols.  L,  II.,  III.,  and  IV., 

8vo,  Cloth,  $2  25  each;  Vol.  V.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $3  00.  Complete 
Sets,  5  vols.,  Sheep,  $14  50;  Half  Calf,  $23  25. 

ALISON'S  HISTORY  OF  EUROPE.  From  the  Commencement 
of  the  French  Revolution,  in  1789,  to  the  Accession  of  Louis  Na- 
poleon, in  1852.     8  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $16  00. 

NEANDER'S  LIFE  OF  CHRIST.  The  Life  of  Christ ;  in  its 
Historical  Connection  and  its  Historical  Development.  By  Au- 
gustus Neander.  Translated  from  the  Fourth  German  Edition 
by  Professors  M'Clintock  &  Blumentiial,  of  Dickinson  Col- 
lege.    Svo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

NORDHOFF'S  COMMUNISTIC  SOCIETIES  OF  THE  UNIT- 
ED STATES.  The  Communistic  Societies  of  the  United  States, 
from  Personal  Visit  and  Observation  ;  including  Detailed  Ac- 
counts of  the  Economists,  Zoarites,  Shakers,  the  Amana,  Oneida, 
Bethel,  Aurora,  Icarian,  and  other  existing  Societies.  By  Charles 
Nordhoff.     Illustrations.     8vo,  Cloth,  $1  00. 

SMILES'S  HISTORY  OF  THE  HUGUENOTS.  The  Hugue- 
nots :  their  Settlements,  Churches,  and  Industries  in  England  and 
Ireland.  By  Samuel  Smiles.  With  an  Appendix  relating  to 
the  Huguenots  in  America.     Crown  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  00. 

SMILES'S  HUGUENOTS  AFTER  THE  REVOCATION.     The 

Huguenots  in  France  after  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes; 
with  a  Visit  to  the  Country  of  the  Vaudois.  By  Samuel  Smiles. 
Crown  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  00. 

SMILES'S  LIFE  OF  THE  STEPHENSONS.  The  Life  of 
George  Stephenson,  and  of  his  Son,  Robert  Stephenson ;  compris- 
ing, also,  a  History  of  the  Invention  and  Introduction  of  the  Rail- 
way Locomotive.  By  Samuel  Smiles.  Illustrated.  Svo,  Cloth, 
$3  00. 


10  Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries. 

GRIFFIS'S  JAPAN.  The  Mikado's  Empire :  Book  I.  History  of 
Japan,  from  660  B.C.  to  1872  A.D.  Book  II.  Personal  Experi- 
ences, Observations,  and  Studies  in  Japan,  from  1870  to  1874. 
By  W.  E.  Griffis.  Copiously  Illustrated.  8vo,  Cloth,  $4  00 ; 
Half  Calf,  $6  25. 

SCHLIEMANN'S  ILIOS.  Ilios,  the  City  and  Country  of  the  Tro- 
jans. A  Narrative  of  the  Most  Recent  Discoveries  and  Re- 
searches made  on  the  Plain  of  Troy.  By  Dr.  Henry  Schlie- 
mann.  Maps,  Plans,  and  Illustrations.  Imperial  8vo,  Illuminated 
Cloth,  $12  00;  Half  Morocco,  $15  00. 

SCHLIEMANN'S  TROJA.  Troja.  Results  of  the  Latest  Re- 
searches and  Discoveries  on  the  Site  of  Homer's  Troy,  and  in  the 
Heroic  Tumuli  and  other  Sites,  made  in  the  Year  1882,  and  a 
Narrative  of  a  Journey  in  the  Troad  in  1881.  By  Dr.  Henry 
Schliemaxx.  Preface  by  Professor  A.  II.  Sayce.  With  Wood- 
cuts, Maps,  and  Plans.     8vo,  Cloth,  $7  50. 

SCHWEINFURTH'S  HEART  OF  AFRICA.  Three  Years' 
Travels  and  Adventures  in  the  Unexplored  Regions  of  the  Centre 
of  Africa  —  from  1868  to  1871.  By  George  Schweinfurth. 
Translated  by  Ellen  E.  Freaver.  Illustrated.  2  vols.,  8vo, 
Cloth,  $8  00. 

NORTON'S  STUDIES  OF  CHURCH -BUILDING.  Historical 
Studies  of  Church-Building  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Venice,  Siena, 
Florence.     By  Charles  Eliot  Norton.     8vo,  Cloth,  $3  00. 

THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  "CHALLENGER."  The  Atlantic: 
an  Account  of  the  General  Results  of  the  Voyage  during  1873, 
and  the  Early  Part  of  1876.  By  Sir  Wyville  Thomson, 
K.C.B.,  F.R.S.     Illustrated.     2  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $12  00. 

BOSWELL'S  JOHNSON.  The  Life  of  Samuel  Johnson,  LL.D., 
including  a  Journal  of  a  Tour  to  the  Hebrides.  By  James  Bos- 
well.  Edited  by  J.  W.  Croker,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.  *  With  a  Por- 
trait of  Boswell.     2  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $4  00;  Sheep,  $5  00. 

JOHNSON'S  COMPLETE  WORKS.  The  Works  of  Samuel 
Johnson,  LL.D.  With  an  Essay  on  his  Life  and  Genius,  by 
A.  Murphy.     2  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $4  00;  Sheep,  $5  00. 


Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries.  11 

ADDISON'S  COMPLETE  WORKS.  The  Works  of  Joseph  Ad- 
dison, embracing  the  whole  of  the  Spectator.  3  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth, 
$6  00. 

OUTLINES  OF  ANCIENT  HISTORY.  From  the  Earliest 
Times  to  the  Fall  of  the  Western  Roman  Empire,  A.D.  47G. 
Embracing  the  Egyptians,  Chaldoeans,  Assyrians,  Babylonians, 
Hebrews,  Phoenicians,  Medes,  Persians,  Greeks,  and  Romans. 
By  P.  V.  N.  Myers,  A.M.,  President  of  Farmers'  College,  Ohio. 
12mo,  Cloth,  $1  75. 

BROUGHAM'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  Life  and  Times  of  Henry, 
Lord  Brougham.  Written  by  Himself.  3  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth, 
$6  00. 

BLUNT'S  BEDOUIN  TRIBES  OF  THE  EUPHRATES. 
Bedouin  Tribes  of  the  Euphrates.  By  Lady  Anne  Blunt. 
Edited,  with  a  Preface  and  some  Account  of  the  Arabs  and  their 
Horses,  by  W.  S.  B.  Map  and  Sketches  by  the  Author.  8vo, 
Cloth,  $2*  50. 

THOMPSON'S  PAPACY  AND  THE  CIVIL  POWER.  The 
Papacy  and  the  Civil  Power.  By  the  Hon.  R.  W.  Thompson. 
Crown  8vo,  Cloth,  $3  00. 

ENGLISH  CORRESPONDENCE.  Four  Centuries  of  English 
Letters.  Selections  from  the  Correspondence  of  One  Hundred 
and  Fifty  Writers,  from  the  Period  of  the  Paston  Letters  to  the 
Present  Day.  Edited  by  W.  Baptiste  Scoones.  12mo,  Cloth, 
$2  00. 

THE  POETS  AND  POETRY  OF  SCOTLAND :  From  the  Ear- 
liest to  the  Present  Time.  Comprising  Characteristic  Selections 
from  the  Works  of  the  more  Noteworthy  Scottish  Poets,  with  Bio- 
graphical and  Critical  Notices.  By  James  Grant  Wilson.  With 
Portraits  on  Steel.  2  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $10  00;  Gilt  Edges, 
$11   00. 

COLERIDGE'S  WORKS.  The  Complete  Works  of  Samuel  Taylor 
Coleridge.  With  an  Introductory  Essay  upon  his  Philosophical 
and  Theological  Opinions.  Edited  by  Professor  W.  G.  T.  Shedd. 
With  Steel  Portrait,  and  an  Index.  7  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $2  00 
per  volume ;  $12  00  per  set. 


12  Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries. 

THE  STUDENT'S  SERIES.  Maps  and  Illustrations.  12mo, 
Cloth : 

France. — Gibbon. — Greece. — Rome  (by  Liddell). — Old 
Testament  History. — New  Testament  History. — Strick- 
land's  Queens  of  England. — Ancient  History  of  the  East. 
— Hallam's  Middle  Ages. — Hallam's  Constitutional  His- 
tory of  England. — Lyell's  Elements  of  Geology. — Meri- 
vale's  General  History  of  Rome. — Cox's  General  History 
of  Greece. — Classical  Dictionary. — Skeat's  Etymological 
Dictionary.     $1  25  per  volume. 

Lewis's  History  of  Germany. — Ecclesiastical  History. 
— Hume's  England.     $1  50  per  volume. 

BOURNE'S  LOCKE.  The  Life  of  John  Locke.  By  H.  R.  Fox 
Bourne.     2  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

CAMERON'S  ACROSS  AFRICA.  Across  Africa.  By  Verney 
Lovett  Cameron.     Map  and  Illustrations.     Svo,  Cloth,  $5  00. 

BARTII'S  NORTH  AND  CENTRAL  AFRICA.  Travels  and 
Discoveries  in  North  and  Central  Africa:  being  a  Journal  of  an 
Expedition  undertaken  under  the  Auspices  of  H.B.M.'s  Govern- 
ment, in  the  Years  1849-1855.  By  Henry  Barth,  Ph.D., 
D.C.L.     Illustrated.     3  vols.,  Svo,  Cloth,  $12  00. 

THOMSON'S  SOUTHERN  PALESTINE  AND  JERUSALEM. 

Southern  Palestine  and  Jerusalem.  Biblical  Illustrations  drawn 
from  the  Manners  and  Customs,  the  Scenes  and  Scenery,  of  the 
Holy  Land.  By  W.  M.  Thomson,  D.D.  140  Illustrations  and 
Maps.  Square  Svo,  Cloth,  $6  00;  Sbeep,  $7  00;  Half  Morocco, 
$8  50 ;  Full  Morocco,  Gilt  Edges,  $10  00. 

THOMSON'S    CENTRAL    PALESTINE    AND    PHCENICIA. 

Central  Palestine  and  Phoenicia.  Biblical  Illustrations  drawn 
from  the  Manners  and  Customs,  the  Scenes  and  Scenery,  of  the 
Holy  Land.  By  W.  M.  Thomson,  D.D.  130  Illustrations  and 
Maps.  Svo,  Clo'th,  $G  00 ;  Sheep,  $7  00  ;  Half  Morocco,  $8  50  ; 
Full  Morocco,  $10  00. 

CYCLOPAEDIA  OF  BRITISH  AND  AMERICAN  POETRY. 
Edited  by  Epes  Sargent.  Royal  Svo,  Illuminated  Cloth,  Colored 
Edges,  $4:  50. 


Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries.  13 

NICHOLS'S  ART  EDUCATION.  Art  Education  Applied  to  In- 
dustry. By  G.  W.  Nichols.  Illustrated.  Svo,  Cloth,  $4  00 ; 
Half  Calf,  $6  25. 

CARLYLE'S  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT.  History  of  Fried- 
rich  II.,  called  Frederick  the  Great.  By  Thomas  Carlyle. 
Portraits,  Maps,  Plans,  &c.     6  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth,  $7  50. 

CARLYLE'S  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  The  French  Revolu- 
tion: a  History.  By  Thomas  Carlyle.  2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth, 
$2  50. 

CARLYLE'S  OLIVER  CROMWELL.  Oliver  Cromwell's  Let- 
ters and  Speeches,  including  the  Supplement  to  the  First  Edition. 
With  Elucidations.  By  Thomas  Carlyle.  2  vols.,  12mo, 
Cloth,  $2  50. 

PAST  AND  PRESENT,  CHARTISM,  AND  SARTOR  RE- 
SARTUS.     By  Thomas  Carlyle.     12mo,  Cloth,  $1  25. 

EARLY  KINGS  OF  NORWAY,  AND  THE  PORTRAITS  OF 
JOHN  KNOX.     By  Thomas  Carlyle.     12mo,  Cloth,  $1  25. 

BULWER'S  LIFE  AND  LETTERS.  Life,  Letters,  and  Literary 
Remains  of  Edward  Bulwer,  Lord  Lytton.  By  his  Son,  the 
Earl  of  Lytton  ("Owen  Meredith").  In  one  Volume.  Illus- 
trated.    12mo,  Cloth,  $2  75. 

BULWER'S  HORACE.  The  Odes  and  Epodes  of  Horace.  A 
Metrical  Translation  into  English.  With  Introduction  and  Com- 
mentaries.    With  Latin  Text.     12mo,  Cloth,  $1  75. 

BULWER'S  MISCELLANEOUS  WORKS.  Miscellaneous  Prose 
Works  of  Edward  Bulwer,  Lord  Lytton.  In  Two  Volumes. 
12mo,  Cloth,  $3  50. 

EATON'S  CIVIL  SERVICE.  Civil  Service  in  Great  Britain.  A 
History  of  Abuses  and  Reforms,  and  their  Bearing  upon  Ameri- 
can Politics.     By  Dorman  B.  Eaton.     Svo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

FOLK-LORE  OF  SHAKESPEARE.  By  the  Rev.  T.  F.  Thisel- 
ton  Dyer,  M.A.,  Oxon.,  Author  of  "British  Popular  Customs, 
Past  and  Present,"  etc.     8vo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

THOMSON'S  THE  GREAT  ARGUMENT.  The  Great  Argu- 
ment ;  or,  Jesus  Christ  in  the  Old  Testament.  By  W.  H.  Thom- 
son, M.A.,  M.D.     Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $2  00. 


14  Valuable  Works  for  Public  and  Private  Libraries. 

DAVIS'S  CARTHAGE.  Carthage  and  her  Remains  :  being  an 
Account  of  the  Excavations  and  Researches  on  the  Site  of  the 
Phoenician  Metropolis  in  Africa  and  other  Adjacent  Places.  By 
Dr.  N.  Davis.     Ill'd.     8vo,  Cloth,  $1  00  ;  Half  Calf,  $G  25. 

TROLLOPE'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  An  Autobiography.  By 
Anthony  Trollope.     With  a  Portrait.     12mo,  Cloth,  $1  25. 

TROLLOPE'S  CICERO.  Life  of  Cicero.  By  Anthony  Trol- 
lope.    2  vols.,  12 mo,  Cloth,  $3  00. 

PERRY'S  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.  English  Literature  in  the 
Eighteenth  Century.      By  Thomas  Sergeant  Perry.      12mo, 

Cloth,  $2  00. 

PERRY'S  HISTORY  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.  A 
History  of  the  English  Church,  from  the  Accession  of  Henry 
VIII.  to  the  Silencing  of  Convocation.  By  G.  G.  Perry,  M.A. 
With  a  Sketch  of  the  History  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church 
in  the  United  States.     Crown  8vo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

ABBOTT'S    HISTORY   OF    THE    FRENCH    REVOLUTION. 

The  French  Revolution  of  1789.     By  John  S.  C.  Abbott.     Illus- 
trated.    8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00;  Sheep,  $5  50;  Half  Calf,  $7  25. 

ABBOTT'S  NAPOLEON.  The  History  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 
By  John  S.  C.  Abbott.  Maps,  Illustrations,  and  Portraits. 
2  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth,  $10  00;  Sheep,  $11  00;  Half  Calf,  $14  50. 

ABBOTT'S  NAPOLEON  AT  ST.  HELENA ;  or,  Anecdotes  and 
Conversations  of  the  Emperor  during  the  Years  of  his  Captivity. 
Collected  from  the  Memorials  of  Las  Casas,  O'Meara  Montholon, 
Antommarchi,  and  others.  By  John  S.  C.  Abbott.  Illustrated. 
8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00  ;  Sheep,  $5  50  ;  Half  Calf,  $7  25. 

ABBOTT'S  FREDERICK  THE  GREAT.  The  History  of 
Frederick  the  Second,  called  Frederick  the  Great.  By  John  S.  C. 
Abbott.     Illustrated.     8vo,  Cloth,  $5  00 ;  Half  Calf,  $7  25. 

WATSON'S  MARCUS  AURELIUS  ANTONINUS.  By  Paul 
Barron  Watson.     Crown  Svo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

MCCARTHY'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND.  A  History  of  Our 
Own  Times,  from  the  Accession  of  Queen  Victoria  to  the  General 
Election  of  18S0.  By  Justin  M'Cartht.  2  vols.,  12mo,  Cloth, 
$2  50. 


DATE  DUE 

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